Hidden agenda
by Feudor
Summary: A story set about two years after graduation, exploring what might happen. Some adventure, some darkness, some new revelations...
1. Chapter 1

First story, so please be kind. Comments and reviews appreciated. Oh, and I do not own the rights to Kim Possible or any of the other characters; Kim is all (c) Disney.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

_"You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet others go ever flowing on."_

Heracleitos, 540 - 475 B.C.

**Chapter one, in which things change and moods swing. **

Kim Possible was happy.

There were several different reasons for her good mood, the most obvious being that it was a very nice day in that brief transition between late summer and early autumn.

The sun shone brightly from a pale blue sky. The air was so clear that it seemed that you could distinguish details in the landscape all the way to the horizon. The trees still had most of their leaves, displaying a whole spectrum of vibrant colours from pale green to brilliant orange and deep red. It was a day to make your heart soar.

Another reason for her happiness was that she was speeding along the highway in her favourite car. And that was _so_ not the Sloth. That tweeb-tweaked marvel was for missions and high-tech tricks. This was a proper car; a vintage sports car that she had found in a barn during a mission and had bought cheap. The real cost came from restoring it, but she had had a number of friends to help her, and a few favours to call in.

Wade had done the navigation system and the stereo, but most of the work had in fact been done by Motor Ed as part of a prison scheme, allowing him to earn points towards an early release.

Ron, Monique and her parents had not been too happy to know that she trusted her life to a vehicle that Motor Ed had rebuilt, expecting some sabotage to become evident any minute. Kim, however, was not worried. She trusted Ed to have sufficient pride in his work, and love enough for beautiful cars, not to mess with her ride. And so far, she had not been proven wrong.

The car ran sweetly, with excellent road grip and a spinning engine. This allowed her the slightly guilty pleasure of speeding along without exactly keeping to the speed limits. She had convinced Wade to make the Kimmunicator able to scan the police radio and other electronic signals to warn her of any police controls, so she wasn't really worried about getting caught. Instead, she enjoyed passing staid family sedans with a burst of mellow speed, imagining the kids going "Wow! Dad, did you see that cool car?"

A final boost to her high spirits was the fact that the sleek, bronze metallic sports car was taking her home to Middleton for a short mid-term break in her second year of college studies.

She liked attending the Wannagoo University, and she enjoyed campus life, but this didn't change the fact that she sometimes longed for home and looked forward to seeing her family and her high school friends again.

Yes, all in all, plenty of reasons for feeling happy. She recognized, though, that the main reason probably was that she was able to forget her studies for more than a week. Sure, she was still confident that she could do anything, just not everything at the same time. University meant that she really had to attend lectures and study groups, and hand in her various papers and assignments on time. Other activities, like going on missions, really screwed up her academic life.

Granted, already in the beginning there had been less call for saving the world than before. After their amnesty, Drakken had entirely stopped his wacky attempts to take over the world, and Shego had vanished along with him. Kim thought they were probably living quietly on their ill-gotten gains, taking it easy for once. Professor Dementor was also mostly invisible. A piece of inspired hacking from Wade had let them freeze all his bank accounts, and the mad scientist suddenly found himself totally without funds. This limited the scale of his operations so that the local village constabulary was usually up to the task of stopping him. Señor Senior, Sr., concentrated more and more on barely legal corporate take-overs, making more money than ever before, and Jr. concentrated more and more on his own brand of airheaded narcissism, spending more money than ever.

It really was kind of boring, but it made enough space in her agenda that the first term at Wannagoo wasn't a total failure. With the start of her second term, she asked Wade to take down the website. She got more time for her studies, but the bad start was more than enough to make her academic endeavour a real struggle. At least she started getting passable grades.

Holidays and vacations were much needed periods for rest and recuperation, but this mid-term break her schedule allowed her was an unexpected bonus, and therefore even more appreciated.

Yes, all in all, Kim felt happy as a toddler at Christmas!

==##0##==

The P1800ES allowed her to make good time, and it was early afternoon when she pulled up in front of her parents' house. She grabbed her purse and ran up to the front door.

To her disappointment, however, nobody answered the door when she rang the bell, and when she let herself in with her own keys, she found a note on the kitchen table.

"_Hi, Kimmie! Welcome home! _

"_Sorry we are not there to greet you. I have emergency surgery at the hospital, and your dad is working round the clock on some impossible deadline at the space centre. Your brothers are at soccer practice, and plan to go on to a movie later._

"_There is some food in the fridge if you are hungry! See you later! _

"_Love, Mum". _

Kim's spirits did sink a little at the lack of the expected welcome, but she was still glad to be home and enjoying a break. The cold meal in the fridge was brain loaf; she checked. It could wait, she decided. Perhaps she would feel like a late night snack.

After getting her stuff in from the car, she flopped down on the bed in her old room, and started making some phone calls. After only a couple of minutes, she had arranged to meet Ron and Monique at the Bueno Nacho later, and was feeling great again.

==##0##==

The Bueno Nacho down by her old high school looked exactly like she remembered it, and the moment she passed the doors she spotted Ron and Monique at the usual table. Monique waved at her as she bounced up to the booth. Monique was looking great, decked out in the latest fashion.

"Hi, Ron! Hi, Monique! Great to see you both!"

"Likewise, girlfriend! Looking good!

Ron and Monique had already gotten their orders, so Kim went to the counter to get her own food.

Joining her friends again, she picked up the conversation and started them catching up on the events since they had last met.

It was still early in the evening, and the fast food restaurant was full with families taking their kids out for a treat. The familiar smells of cheese, Diablo Sauce and spilled sodas triggered contented memories in Kim's mind. The menu was the same, the chairs and tables unchanged, and even the guests looked familiar. In particular Ron and Monique, of course. Ron still had his Cargos and football sweater, and Monique was, as usual, dressed in the latest Club Banana fashion line. Kim forgot university and let the familiar surroundings spin her back to a more care-free life.

"So, Kim", Ron said after a while, "it's really good to back all together at the Bueno Nacho, don't you think? Been a while, actually!"

"Yes, it sure has. But hey, talking about being all together, where's Rufus?"

"Oh!" Ron's face fell a little. "Well, you know, naked mole rats are rather small and delicate animals. Their life is not really ... like a human's..."

"Oh, Ron! I'm so sorry. When did ... er ...you know?

Ron's eyes widened. "No, Kim! Don't worry! He's not dead. It's just that he doesn't move so easily anymore, and he spends most of his time asleep, nowadays. He's just home at the apartment, sleeping in his little den!"

Kim gave a sigh of relief, but the clear indication of the passage of time still stabbed her happy mood in the back. "Well, I'm glad he's still with us! So, anyway, as you said, it's been a while and I'm actually glad to be tasting the fake Mexican again. You know, poor college student? Eats mostly pot noodles and the occasional TV dinner. And all the other students I know are health freaks and only want to go out for salads or quorn. So this is a welcome break! You, on the other hand, are probably here at B.N. twice a day, anyway!"

"Not really, KP, more like once a month."

"OMG!" Kim said in an overly dramatic voice, trying to inject some levity into the conversation after her fright about the naked mole rat. "Who are you, and what have you done to young master Stoppable?"

"Not kidding you, Kim! Hey? One and a half years of college level Nutrition and Food preparation? With the major focus on _haute cuisine_? I can't keep eating junk food all the time, I've got to develop my palate!

"_Develop your palate_?" Kim looked sceptical. "So what DO you eat?"

"Well, mostly whatever is going at school. There's often some dinner or senior student project that need kind customers to try it. Also, I have my own assignments. Currently, I have to research and put together a balanced, original three course menu every week, cook it and have it tested by the class. I usually try it out on Monique, here, also."

Monique looked at Ron with quite contentment, almost with pride.

"What, Mon comes to your school to eat?"

"Not really. I usually invite her over for dinner as a sort of dress rehearsal."

"And mighty tasty it usually is, too, even if I'm no more than an incredibly beautiful guinea pig for his gastronomic inventions!"

Kim looked at her friends, somewhat bewildered. "What, you have Monique over at your flat for a romantic dinner once a week? Something you guys need to be telling me, here?"

Ron and Monique exchanged a glance and hesitated.

And at that moment, all the lights went out.

==##0##==

The darkness fell quickly, but a lot of different sounds and noises died away more gradually. The beeping and pinging of cooking timers and cash registers were the first to go, along with the background music. The slot machines made a few dispirited clunks and gave in to silence a bit more reluctantly. The hum of the different refrigeration units died with a few final gurgles of CFC-free coolants, and the extraction fans and the ventilation faded unwillingly away.

The silence would have been deafening if the fast food customers hadn't started to babble. A steady hum rose to replace the mechanical soundscape, punctuated by the occasional shriek of a frightened kid or the coarse interjections from the man who spilled his soda.

Kim used the unexpected break in their conversation to gather her thoughts.

"Uh oh! Darkness!" Ron always did have penchant for stating the obvious. "Someone blew a fuse!"

"Looks like a pretty major power failure to me", Kim said.

The light from the emergency exit signs and the occasional headlamps of a passing car just made it possible to see that Ron shook his head.

"No big, KP, just one bird too many on the power line."

"Birds, eh? I wouldn't know about that. I think I'll just slip outside to take a look!"

"Oh, come on, Kim! Leave it be! You don't have to save us from everything all the time, you know. The power company will fix it in no time. Or perhaps you think it's Electronique absorbing all the electricity as part of some villainous scheme? Just take it easy for once!"

Kim blinked. Had Ron just made fun of her and all the missions they had undertaken together for so many years? A small, cold lump took up residence in her guts, next to her worry over Rufus, but she couldn't think of anything to say. She just stood up and walked outside.

==##0##==

It really did look like a major power failure. There were no lights at all as far as she could see, except for passing vehicles and the pale light of the almost full moon.

She leaned her back against the wall and let the cool air sooth her. Did Ron think she was being childish or something? And if so, when had he started feeling like that?

To reassure herself, she grabbed her Kimmunicator and pressed the button for Wade. He, at least, would take her seriously.

It took a few seconds longer than usual for Wade to answer, and when he did there was no picture, just sound.

"Hi, Wade! Kim, here. How're you doing?"

"Oh, hi Kim! Long time, no see! And I bet you're not seeing me now, either. I'm afraid you caught me in the middle of Australia."

Kim started thinking furiously. Could it be the middle of the night in Australia when it was dark also here in Middleton?

"Sorry Wade, I didn't know you were out of the country! Did I wake you up?"

"Not Australia, the commonwealth nation, but Australia, the blockbuster movie! I'm at the movie theatre at the Middleton mall!"

"Oh! So, I guess the power cut already interrupted the show, huh?"

"Yeah, and it's a slow job getting out of the theatre, I can tell you! It's really dark in here!"

"Well, anyway, I'm glad to hear that you are out and about, and not skulking in your room anymore."

Wade sighed. "Yeah, it has taken a lot of effort, therapy and medication, but I can finally live a more normal life. Even going to the movies with... er... friends."

"Medication, Wade? Pills? Is that really ... good for you? What if you develop an addiction?"

Kim could clearly hear the sharp intake of breathe over the Kimmunicator, and realised she had probably said something stupid.

"So what, Kim, so what? That's easy for you to say; you aren't scared of anything! Have you any idea what I have been going through to get this far? Did you think I spent all my life in my bedroom just 'cause I felt like it? Convenient for you, with me always at your beck and call, but do you really have any idea at all of how my life has been? So, let me tell you – the pills are totally worth it!"

Kim was speechless. She knew she had been sort of insensitive just now, but had Wade really felt like that all the time? She had sort of assumed that he was fairly happy with his computers and geek stuff.

"Sorry, Kim", Wade said after a while. " I didn't mean to shout at you like that. What can I do for you?"

"Ah...just checking, really, if you could say something about the cause of the blackout?" Kim said, relieved to come back to the familiar sitch of asking Wade for information.

Wade sighed. "Not here and now, actually. I need to get home and power up my stand-by generators, and I can't really just dump my date and split!"

More unexpected revelations, but by now Kim was starting to feel numb. "Sorry, Wade! It seems I really do expect you to drop everything and just tell me whatever I need. Wade, I'm really, really sorry!"

"Well, as you would say, Kim, no big. It was kind of nice to hear your voice again. Let me see what I can find out later, and I'll get back to you in a couple of hours?"

"Well, only if you're sure I'm not interrupting ..."

"Kim, please just shut up! You're embarrassing me! I'll get back to you later. All right?"

"Sure; that's fine, Wade! Thank you!"

"You're welcome, Kim. Really!. I'm sorry I said what I said just now..."

"It's all right, Wade. I'm sorry, too. Later?"

"Yeah, later!"

==##0##==

Kim disconnected and sank down on her haunches. That did not go as she had expected, either. Perhaps she should have done as Ron said, and just let it be? Why did everything suddenly seem so complicated? Things she had never really questioned before suddenly changed. It was like the characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, suddenly growing fangs, turning from good-looking guys into evil vampires. Not the Ron was a blood-sucker, but he had just sort of changed in some subtle manner and she wasn't sure she knew him all that well, anymore. And if he did suck some of her good mood away from her, Wade just got the rest.

She glanced over her shoulder and caught sight of Ron and Monique. They had been given candles by the Bueno staff, and now looked like they were enjoying a romantic dinner.

What a mess! She had been so happy, and now this! Ron and Mon, together? Rufus fading away? Ron growing up and making something serious of his life? And she was still playing at being the hero. She had been struggling with her classes, getting disappointing grades, just because she took such a lot of time off to fight these really pathetic villains. For what? If she just left them alone, most of them would probably blow themselves up with their own doomsday devices out of sheer stupidity. And then the sitch with Wade... Yeah, what a mess!

She glanced at Ron and Monique once more, and decided she didn't really want to go back in. Instead, she started walking towards her parents' house. Perhaps someone would be home by now. Or at least she could console herself with the brain loaf.

Kim Possible was suddenly not happy. No, not happy at all.


	2. Chapter 2

The usual disclaimer: I don't own the copyright to Kim Possible or any of the other characters (except perhaps Mr. Barnstormer); they are all © Disney. Second chapter of my first ever fanfiction story, so please be kind. Comments and reviews appreciated, even if only to let me know it both sucks and stinks.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

"_Should auld acquaintance be forgot,  
And never brought to mind ?  
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,  
And auld lang syne?"_

Robert Burns, 1759 –1796

**Chapter two, leading up to a meeting between two old adversaries, which should surprise nobody. **

==##0##==

Dawn found Kim Possible ready and waiting.

As the earth slowly turned to face the sun, the bright rays easily penetrated the clear morning sky, fingering the antennas and roof tops of downtown Middleton and picking out blazing highlights from the remaining shadows.

Because of the power failure, the sign on the boxlike SmartyMart building was dark. The huge parking lot was empty except for an old wreck of a car over by the dumpsters, and the magpies picking hot dogs and fries out of the trash cans. Kim had herself taken a cab rather than leave her car for an indefinite period at an empty parking lot. Now that the cab had dropped her off, she found herself completely alone.

Kim was waiting for a ride.

==##0##==

When she had come back to the house the previous evening, her parents had been home. Their warm but belated welcome had helped restoring some kind of calm, and sitting at the kitchen table having tea and biscuits had been therapeutic.

The tweebs had returned not long after Kim, feeling rather disappointed. Their night at the movies had also been cut short by the blackout, but they soon cheered up, seeming genuinely happy to see Kim.

And later, Wade had called back with some info, although he hadn't had a lot to tell.

He told Kim that the blackout was more than state wide, but it had been impossible to find out the cause.

"But Wade, can't you just hack into the power company computers and read the logbooks of something?" Kim had asked.

"Sure I can hack them, but there's nothing there. The records are all completely jumbled, almost as if someone had deliberately erased and destroyed everything. I can find out the extent of the power cuts, but not what happened to cause it. And the control software is down, so down it's on a journey to the centre of the earth!"

"That's strange. I mean, wouldn't it be obvious where the power is, and where it isn't, and the problem would have to be just in between?"

"Not really, Kim. When a grid like this goes down, a large number of breakers are tripped and all power production feeding into the failed transmission lines goes into emergency shut-down. After just a few seconds, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of different individual failures in the system, and it becomes very difficult to understand were the problems started unless you have the data to look at. Which we haven't, since the TSO computers seem to have been totally wiped."

"TSO, Wade? Been talking too much to Monique?"

"Transmission System Operator. Fairly standard abbreviation, actually."

"Hm. Not to me, it isn't. Anyway, does this mean it was some kind of sabotage?"

"Don't know, Kim. For all I know it could have been some computer bug that screwed everything up, instead of a transmission system failure that caused the computers to malfunction. Either way, could've been deliberate, could've been just a combination of unlucky circumstances. But if it _was_ a power line failure, my guess is that it would be in one of the big trunk lines feeding power into the state grid, like the one coming into Middleton from the hydropower stations to the north."

Kim Possible had been quite for a while, thinking. "Wade, can you get me an airlift tomorrow morning? I think I'd like to take a look at that power line you mentioned."

"Oh, come on, Kim. The power company will surely be doing that themselves. And what could you do, even if you see a stretch of cable lying on the ground? You are no electrical engineer!"

"Yeah, I know, Wade, but I want to do something. And there's still a chance that it might be some kind of sabotage or terrorism or whatever! And then it would be _me_ that could be doing something, and the power company that would need my help!"

Wade sighed softly. "Ok, Kim. I'll see what I can do. I'll text you the details later."

"Please and thank you, Wade!"

"Yeah, you're welcome. Just take it easy and don't be too disappointed if all you see is forest."

==##0##==

That had been late last night, and now, here she was, waiting at the SmartyMart parking lot with a parachute slung over her shoulder. She was wearing paratrooper style trousers, all the numerous pockets full with useful stuff, and an old-fashioned leather Air Force jacket. Pilot style sunglasses rode on the bridge of her nose, and her hair was hidden under a kaki-coloured baseball cap.

She was pushing herself into "mission mode", forcing all her doubts and worries out of her system.

==##0##==

About half an hour after arriving at the Middleton SmartyMart, the sound of an engine announced the end of her wait. Soon, a strange-looking aircraft appeared over the horizon.

Kim gave a low whistle. To her, it looked a bit like a WWI double-decker fighter, only it didn't even have one pair of wings. Instead, a large rotor mounted on a tripod spun over the fuselage. Wade had surprised her once again. _Well, at least it wasn't a hot air balloon_; she thought, _that would have been annoyingly slow_.

After making a circle over the parking lot, the machine touched down and came to a full stop surprisingly quickly, even if it didn't land straight down like a helicopter.

Kim ran up to the contraption and greeted the pilot as the engine died.

"Hi there, Mr. Barnstormer!" she shouted as he removed his goggles, revealing his identity.

"Ah, Miss Possible! Please just call me Dusty! And welcome for a ride in my Nellie! She's an Autogyro, ya know!"

"I'll take your word for it", Kim said, eyeing the craft with some misgivings. There was no cabin, only two open cockpits, each with a small windshield in front. The rotor blades spun slowly on their hub at the top of the tripod. The radial combustion engine powered a two-bladed wooden propeller at the front. It all seemed more like a museum piece rather than a comfortable ride.

"Oh, don't ya worry! She's very dependable, is Nellie! Never broken down yet! A bit noisy, though. Take this, and plug the cables into the socket on the dashboard so we can talk." Mr. Barnstormer handed her a leather flying helmet with earphones and a microphone.

"Thanks! Sure appreciate the help, Mr. ...eh ... Dusty!"

"My pleasure, young lady! The least I could do for saving my crop-duster from crashing!"

"Oh, no big!"

"Sure seemed big to me! I would've gone bankrupt if it had been destroyed. And I've never seen anyone jump from one airplane to the other like that without a parachute before!"

Yeah, that was a rush, Kim thought. And reaching round the unconscious colleague of Mr. B. to land the plane had been a bit tricky. But that was the type of thing that gave some spice to her life. "Aw, no big," she repeated, climbing up into the aft cockpit.

They tested their communication equipment, and Mr. Barnstormer started the engine.

"She's an Avro-built Cierva C30, but I've added a few modernizations, like the electrical starter!"

Kim just clicked her microphone twice in answer, thinking she would have been more appreciative if he had added an enclosed cabin to sit in. Or anything that looked like it hade been designed more recently than 1935.

Takeoff evidently required a longer runway than landing, but the parking lot was easily big enough, and soon they were making wide circles above the still sleeping suburbs of Middleton.

==##0##==

Nellie the autogyro was not very fast, but, as Dusty Barnstormer had claimed, she seemed quite stable and dependable. They soon left Middleton and the surrounding plains behind and entered the forested foothills north of the city. They had no trouble keeping their course, flying just east of the huge swath cut through the forest to ensure that no trees could fall on the power lines.

Once airborne, they didn't speak much. As Wade had warned her, they mostly saw trees and forest. From time to time, some deer could be seen running away from the unexpected noise of their approach, and once or twice Kim thought she might have seen a bear. But on the whole, the flight was uneventful. It was, however, a beautiful morning, and if she hadn't been so keen on finding something worth a mission, she could have enjoyed the flight as an aerial safari through the mountain wilderness upstate.

After almost two hours, Kim got a bit hungry and started nibbling at the sandwiches and chocolate bars she had brought for this eventuality. She was gradually resigning herself to aborting the mission, and was not surprised when Mr. Barnstormer's voice suddenly crackled in her headphones. "We will need to turn back in about a quarter of an hour. Is that all right with you?"

Kim sighed and thumbed the switch on her microphone. "Sure, we did what we could. Just give me the 15 minutes and we're fine!"

"Roger that!"

Kim put her snacks away and began preparing for turning back empty-handed. Cresting the next small rise, however, something caught her eyes up ahead.

"That doesn't look like it should be there," Mr. Barnstormer observed.

"Sure doesn't!"

In the middle of the wilderness, something had been built beside and partly underneath the power lines. It looked like some kind of electrical installation, with lots of high voltage breakers, bus bars and isolators. It was connected to the overhead lines, but there were no visible outgoing transmission lines, except the ones they had been flying along.

All in all, not an unusual sight in the vicinity of a power line, except there was no reason at all for it being just there, in the middle of nowhere.

"This is it! I need to get off here!"

"OK. Watch the power lines when you land, though!"

"Don't worry! And thank you once again, Mr. Barnstormer!"

"Oh come on! Do call me Dusty! And don't forget to disconnect the headphones before you jump!"

Kim took the helmet off and put her cap back on before leaving the autogyro. As she dropped, she could see Nellie making a wide turn and heading back the way they had come. She had forgotten to ask, but she felt sure Dusty would radio back to Wade and give him the position where she had jumped.

==##0##==

Landing was easy. There was a wide valley coming down from the west and crossing the clearing under the power lines, so there was plenty of space without trees in which to land. She folded her parachute and hid it behind some rocks before walking up to the suspicious installation, looking for clues as to what it did, and why it was there.

It didn't look much different from the ground. Just a lot of electrical thingies and contraptions that didn't mean a thing to her. The only strange thing about it was that it seemed to be brand new, and that it sat in a patch of freshly levelled gravel. Kim felt increasingly certain that it was doing something it wasn't supposed to be doing.

Kim slowly circled the installation, reaching into her pocket for the Kimmunicator. _She_ might not be able to tell what the thing was, but she was sure Wade could scan it and name it without any problems.

She never pressed the button to call Wade, though. She was too surprised by what she suddenly saw under the trees to the west, were the power line clearing ended.

There, on a log by some rocks, a woman lounged, a mug of coffee or tea and a packet of biscuits in her hands. She had a small camp stove and a coffeepot at her feet. She was wearing hiking boots and thick grey socks. The sturdy dark green trousers came down to just below her knees, where they were tightly buckled. She was wearing a waist-length leather jacket much like the one Kim had on, but black. No cap stopped her long luxurious hair from cascading down her back; long enough that she had to take care not to sit on it.

Kim knew her well. And the voice, when the woman hailed Kim, was very familiar.

"Why, hello there, Pumpkin! Nice of you to drop by! Did you miss me?"

Kim felt a nasty grin spreading across her face.

Oh boy, was she ready for some action!

==##0##==

A.N. OK, this is chapter two of the story that I realise I forgot to say wasn't a one-shot. Still just building up towards some action. Hope it isn't boring the socks off you.

The name of the autogyro of course comes from the machine used by Mr. Bond in _You Only Live Twice_. That, however, was a very small, modern pusher type autogiro, while Mr. Barnstormer seems to have gotten hold of a R.A.F. machine from the thirties. I have no idea if there ever was a C30 double-seater model, though.


	3. Chapter 3

OK, Kim and Shego are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN**** AGENDA**

"_He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,_

_And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere."_

Ali ibn-Abi-Talib (602 AD - 661 AD).

**Chapter three, which is taken up mainly with conversation leading up to a ****minor cliff-hanger. **

Kim Possible was instantly ready for action.

If she were an athlete, she would be coiled in the starting blocks for the 100 metre dash. If she were the fire service, all the firemen would be sliding down the pole to man the ladders and pumps. If she had been a naval vessel, she'd have had all hands on deck at battle stations.

"SHEGO," she almost hissed between clenched teeth. She switched her wary approach to the rush of a football player, tackling Shego high on the body.

The coffee mug and the packet of biscuits the pale green woman had been holding went flying wide as they both crashed back into the rocks behind the camp site. For once, Shego had been taken completely by surprise.

Kim's attack had, however, not been all that well conceived. They both went down, Shego hitting the back of her head against a large boulder and Kim planting her face in the rocky scree at its base.

"Ow, Kimmie, ow! What the hell are you doing? When have I ever done anything to you? eh...recently, that is?"

Kim staggered to her feet, a feral grin on her face. The blood dripping from a bad cut on her forehead added to her somewhat crazed appearance.

"What have you done? Is that a trick question? Whatever have you NOT done? Every time I see something underhand and villainous, there you are, smack bang in the middle of it, aiding that idiot looser in whatever his current obsession is. Well, once again, you're going down!"

"Stop right there, now, will you?" Shego said, backing up. "Wouldn't it be good to know what's happening before you rush in?"

"Not really! I'm fine if I just get to hurt you, a lot! Starting now!"

Shego sighed. "OK, I can understand that, but it would still be a good idea if I could explain a few things before you loose it again. Just sit down and have a cup of coffee and let me talk, all right? And wipe the blood out of your face, it's distracting!"

"Figures you would be a vampire, too, excited by the sight of blood," Kim muttered, thinking of Ron sucking her good mood away the previous evening.

"Huh? Was that supposed to make sense?"

But Kim just waved Shego away and sat down on the log, wiping her face with a handkerchief.

When Kim was more or less clean again, Shego handed her a blue mug of black coffee.

"Here, you can have Dr. D.'s mug. I only have black coffee, though, and the biscuits are off. There are an amazing number of ants hereabouts that all seem to love their Digestives..."

Shego took her own mug of coffee, green of course, and sat down on the log. Kim made herself comfortable as far away from her as possible.

"Ok, go ahead! You have the time it takes me to finish my coffee, and then I'm gonna bust your ass!"

Shego held back her reply in the interest of time and started collecting her thoughts, a concentrated scowl on her face.

"Ok, Possible," she finally started. "You know we got our amnesties after the Lowardian mess, right?"

Kim nodded.

"Pretty neat, huh? Well, I've gotta start by telling you it wasn't that simple." Shego looked out over the clearing and settled down to telling her story.

"To start with, we had to surrender all funds, equipment and real estate we had accumulated during our criminal career. Clean slate, right? So there went all that lovely money."

"Oh, boo-hoo, Shego! Don't tell me you didn't hang on to a secret stash!"

"Well, yeah, you're right, sneaky is my middle name, but really, most of it we had to give up. Your little nerdy friend had a surprisingly good map of most of our secret accounts and resources. And he was happy to oblige in stripping us of our assets."

Kim hadn't thought about that. Made sense, though. You couldn't really turn around your life, while still living the high life thanks to stuff you had already stolen.

"Yeah, anyway, he didn't know of some of the stuff we had hidden in other forms. A stash of British gold sovereigns here, some industrial diamonds there.... Problem was, while we still had that, we couldn't really use much of it. That would just have alerted GJ and everyone else to the fact that we hadn't confessed to all of our sins and had broken the terms for the amnesty. So, most of the money, we didn't have anymore, and the rest we couldn't really use."

"Tough! You would just have to get a job like everyone else!"

"Yeah, like you have spent so much time earning your own way! I only remember that disaster at that Bueno Nacho place your buffoon is so in love with!" Shego glared at Kim from the corner of her eyes, and Kim had the good grace to back down from that particular confrontation.

"Anyway, that just brings me to the next problem: There aren't really that many job opportunities out there for your average former super-villain. Dr. D. had thought he might get back to research, but there was no university that would give him a faculty position. No institute that would hire him. And no government agency that would give him even the smallest grant. His resumed academic career was dead in the water before it even began!"

"And you?"

"Don't even ask, Princess. You would **not** want to know how I've made my living the past year!"

Kim couldn't really imagine what could be so bad that she wouldn't even want to know, but she let that slide, also.

"So," she said eventually, "now you're back to helping Drakken take over the world, is that it? Holding the power system to ransom, I bet?"

"Nope! Well, I'm back to helping the stupid old smurf with his dreams, but not the take over the world part. You see … he's actually trying to make a big research breakthrough to finally make his reputation. This," she waved at the installation under the power lines, "feeds power to a large particle accelerator he's built in the access tunnel of one of his abandoned lairs. He figures the results will be so sensational that the scientific world cannot fail to give him his rightful place in its pantheon! I dunno, it's just mumbo-jumbo geek-speak to me, but I figured I owed him some help, for old time's sake. And here I am; just watching the machine, and pushing the buttons as required."

Kim finished the last of her coffee, but instead of putting a stop to the conversation, she just held out her mug for a refill. Shego obliged without comment.

"But Shego, that's not the whole of it, is it? For one thing, using all the power in the state of Colorado for a secret experiment isn't really legal, is it now? You must have caused millions of dollars of damage with just that little stunt! And I bet it's just because Drakken wants to build some really crazy laser or robot or something!"

Shego topped up her own mug of coffee before replying. "Now there's where you're wrong. He is actually doing basic research, wanting to prove some theory or other. He claims it would help explain whatever happened a few milliseconds _before_ the big bang that created the universe! And OK, we are using some power off the grid, but it really isn't that much that it should be a problem. And the grid is down _in spite of_ our efforts, not _because_ of them!"

"Explain!"

"Well, Dr. D. needed some power, here, to run his experiment and he thought it would be easiest just to use the existing power line. He has, however, already deposited money at the Corporal Electric Company to cover the expense. No, the problem is that there are other people who really do not want Drakken to succeed. They don't give a damn about his experiment or his career. They want him because he can be a useful little idiot with all his gadgets and inventions. So they want him _not_ to succeed, they want him with nowhere else to turn, and they want him, period."

"Are you telling me someone shut down the power in the state of Colorado just to stop Drakken from making a successful experiment? And just because they want him to work for them?"

"In a nutshell, yes!"

"Sorry, Shego, do you really expect me to believe that? It doesn't sound very plausible, now, does it?"

"Guess not, but it's still the truth!" Shego said, draining her coffee.

"Aw, come on! And I guess they want you, too, huh? To be sidekick for these mysterious other persons and their plans? Really, Shego, I thought you would at least have the guts to take responsibility for your own decision to go back to being villains!"

"Believe me, Pumpkin, we would take credit for it, if indeed we had made such a choice! And yes, they do want me – dead!"

Kim just looked at Shego, waiting for her to elaborate. This was overtime, since her second cup of coffee was now finished, but she wanted to hear what Shego had to say.

"Well, yeah, Drakken is a possible asset, crazy as he is. I'm a liability and a bad risk. They want Drakken vulnerable and totally dependent on them, and I suppose they think I might support him and give him some backbone. So, yeah, they want me, all right, six feet under."

Shego sounded unusually bitter, even for her. Kim just looked at her, not really knowing what to think.

"Anyway, Cup-cake, I think I'll be getting some help in convincing you shortly. Hear that?"

What Shego was referring to was the sound of jet fighters rapidly approaching at low altitude.

"The Air Force is gonna make me believe you?"

"Trust me, that's not the Air Force," Shego said, jumping up and snatching a walkie-talkie from her rucksack. "Hey, Drakken?" she yelled into it. "They are here! Move your ass and get out while you can!"

They didn't have time to hear an answer, though, because a formation of jets, painted entirely in black, just burst upon them, and a trail of explosions started creeping up towards the installation under the power lines.

The noise was deafening, especially after the fighters passed overhead, and they were exposed to the roar of the full thrust of the engines as the pilots pulled steeply up, having released their payload of Air-to-Ground missiles. The last of these scored a direct hit on Drakken's machinery, and both it and the nearby power line pylon disappeared in a cloud of dust and smoke. Dirt and metal fragments started raining down over the entire clearing.

"Don't just stand there!" Shego shouted. "We've got to get out of here, or we are done for!"

She grabbed Kim roughly by the arm, and started dragging her up the valley.

"Come on, damn you! I have a hoverpod up there in the ravine, and we have to get to it before they turn around for a second pass!"

Kim was used to keeping her cool in the most impossible situations. She had, however, never been in a military type combat situation before, and the missile fire had momentarily frozen her. Shego's shout prodded her out of her inaction, however, and she started running after her long-time adversary.

They did not make it to the hoverpod, or even to any kind of cover, before the jet fighters had completed their turn and came in for a second pass. This time, cannon and machine gun fire showered the ground behind and around them.

Perhaps they were incredibly lucky, or perhaps it is really difficult to shoot someone on the ground from a fast-moving airplane. Either way, both Shego and Kim made it to a narrow gulch leading up from the main valley towards higher ground with nothing more than cuts from the stones and shards of rock flying about. They pressed their backs up to the rock face, and looked back over the valley.

The power lines were down for as far as they could see, and at least two of the pylons had been reduced to twisted metal skeletons. Drakken's installation was totally gone, only a large hole in the ground showing where it had been.

The jets seemed to be departing. However, that didn't really make the situation much better. There were now three large helicopter gun-ships over the clearing, and two of them started dropping paratroopers. Black seemed to be the colour of choice both for equipment and uniforms for whatever organisation had put in an appearance.

The third helicopter was what worried them most, though. It flew lower than the other two, and began approaching the cliff face under which they were trying to catch their breaths. It came so close that they could actually see the faces of the pilots and the forward gunner under the glass canopies. They could even see the sudden cruel smile on the face of the gunner as he waved his right hand before pressing some control.

His action fired two missiles mounted on either side of the helicopter's body. Almost instantly they smashed into the rock face above Kim and Shego, the resulting explosion bringing the entire cliff down over them.

Kim Possible was about to be taken out of action. For good.

==##0##==

Well, that was chapter three. Talk, talk, talk, but at least some explosions at the end.

Please review, or I'll try to discover how to make a textual Puppy Dog Pout.


	4. Chapter 4

OK, Kim and Shego are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

"_A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterward."_

Jean Paul Richter (1763 - 1825)

**Chapter four, which finds the main characters stuck in a tight spot, forced to inaction.**

Kim Possible was trapped.

The explosions had shattered the cliff face above Kim and Shego, causing a rockslide that would have crushed them both to death if they had not managed to dive for what protection was afforded by some boulders and a small overhang at the base of the cliff.

The fragments of rock had fallen for a long time. When all was finally still, Kim had found herself in almost total darkness, having to force herself to breath in the dust-laden air.

She had cheated death one more time, but this did not affect her all that much. That was almost a daily routine for her from the time she had been at her busiest with the missions and saving of the world. She now found herself in a difficult situation, but that in itself was no big, either.

She had to confess, though, that being buried alive under tonnes and tonnes of rock was a little more disturbing than the situations she usually got herself into.

With the confidence of being able to do anything, however, she wasn't really worried. She would get out from under the rocks sooner or later.

But for the moment, Kim Possible was completely trapped.

==##0##==

"Are you all right, Shego?"

Silence.

"Shego?"

"Yeah, Pumpkin, I'm here."

"Are you all right?" Kim repeated.

"Not really, Princess. My legs are completely trapped by the rocks, and ... they are both pretty badly broken, as far as I can tell."

"Oh, Shego! We'll just have to get out of here and get you to a doctor real quick then, hadn't we?" Kim was a little worried. Fighting Shego usually led to bruises and cuts, but she couldn't remember any conflict that had ever resulted in broken bones.

"Yeah, but just not right now, Kimmie!"

"What?"

Shego sighed. "They had helicopters, and the dropped parachutes. There's every chance they are still around, looking for Drakken and making sure we are properly dead. And if they find us alive, I'm sure they have interesting ways to remedy that situation."

Kim thought for a while. "But, Shego, I haven't done anything to them. They'd have no reason to kill _me_, would they?"

Shego gave a short laugh. "Oh, don't you doubt it, Cutie-Pie, you being here and having been a witness to all this is quite enough reason for them to want you dead!"

Another pause for thinking. "Then we will just have to wait here, making no sound and keeping radio silence, until we are sure they are well gone, and then I can try to reach Wade with the Kimmunicator! Easy!"

"Yeah, but we would have to be quite certain that they wouldn't notice your transmission, too, and get back here before Wade to finish their job!"

"Looks like we'll have to take it easy down here for quite a while, then?"

"Yeah, you do that! Take it easy by all means. Just don't start snoring, or they will hear you!"

==##0##==

They sat quietly for a long time, listening to the noises made by the helicopter crews. At one time, there was quite a lot of activity close by, and they gathered that the black clad operatives were looking at the rockslide, debating whether anyone could still be alive under it, and calculating the effort it would take to remove all the stones to make certain of their demise. In the end, it was evidently deemed to be enough just to leave them to their fate. If they weren't already dead, they soon would be.

Still later, when the sounds of voices and activity had faded into the distance, there was a sizable explosion, causing the rocks on top of Kim and Shego to move and settle a little further.

"What was that?"

"I hope it was Drakken's self-destruct blowing up his installation. That would mean that he got away," Shego said. "Otherwise, the black-clad vermin might have blown it all up themselves to cover their tracks. Or, it could just have been the cooling system for the superconducting electromagnets that failed, vaporizing a fortune's worth of hardware in an instant."

"In short, you don't know?"

"Yeah, that's it, Kimmie, I don't know."

==##0##==

They lay quietly under the rocks for a while longer. Kim felt sure that she had heard a total of three helicopters taking off, and thought that they had been alone for almost an hour by now. She also knew that this was much too soon for them to dare use the Kimmunicator. The bad guys could still easily be back long before anyone notified by Wade could arrive at the scene.

Kim began to be bored.

"Shego, could I ask you a question?"

"Guess so, Princess. Not sure I'll feel like answering, though!"

"Oh, come on, Sheegs! Here we are, just the two of us and a hundred tonnes of rock. Can't you open up just a little?"

"Well, ask your question, and we'll see!"

"All right, here goes!" Kim made a dramatic pause. "Shego, why did you bring a camping stove when you could easily have made your coffee using your plasma flames?"

There was a short moment of silence before Shego gave a snort of laughter, which in turn gave way to whimpers of pain. "Oh, Kimmie, don't make me laugh, it hurts my legs!"

"Sorry, Shego! But still, why did you?"

"Kimmie, after all the years we have been fighting each other, and you finally get me in a situation where I cannot escape you, and you get the chance to ask me something really important, and you want to now why I don't make coffee with my comet powers? You're unbelievable!!"

"Well, it puzzles me. It seems so unnecessary to carry extra equipment, but then I though maybe the green fire would give the coffee some odd flavour or something?"

"Princess, you are priceless! You really want to know why? That's what you most of all want to know?"

Kim nodded, which Shego couldn't have seen, but she got her answer anyway.

"Well, the reason is, I didn't think about it, actually! You are right, I could have made coffee with my powers, and I needn't have packed the stove. I just didn't think about it, OK? Satisfied?"

Kim giggled, happy that she had managed to get a rise out of Shego.

"Anyway, do I get to ask a question, too?"

"Shoot!"

"OK! Answer me this: Does Ron bring the rat to bed when you are together?"

"Shego!! Really! That's a bit personal, you know?"

"Yeah? I'm curious! And I did answer your question!"

"Well, you know, Ron doesn't really sleep over anymore, with or without Rufus. We sort of broke up."

"Good!" Shego declared. "You deserve something better!"

"Well," Kim eventually answered, "I guess I deserve something else, at least, 'cause Ron and me didn't really work out all that well."

"But anyway - my turn again!"

Shego groaned.

"So, Shego, listen up!" Another pause for effect. "How can Sneaky be your middle name, when all you ever go by is 'Shego'? Mustn't you have two names already to be able to have a third, middle name? I mean, if your name was, like, 'Shego Schwarzenegger', you could have a middle name, and be 'Shego Sneaky Schw...'"

"Oh, patience, Lord, give me strength and patience!!"

==##0##==

Kim and Shego continued their session of questions and answers. There really wasn't much else to do. After a while, the conversation got fairly silly, and despite Shego's reluctance to laugh out loud because of the pain in her legs, one could have gotten the impression that they had a rather good time.

Kim kept checking the luminous dial of her watch to keep track of time. When they had been under the rocks for about four hours, a new sound suddenly intruded. This time, it was neither a helicopter nor an airplane. It sounded more like a large jeep or truck approaching.

After a while, the vehicle stopped down in the valley. Whoever was there was evidently inspecting the damage to the power lines, and the other signs of destruction.

Some twenty minutes later, what they though was a jeep started again, and came closer to where Kim and Shego were trapped. It stopped, and it sounded like two persons got out.

"Well, this rockslide wasn't here a month ago, either," a man said.

"Sure wasn't! And look up there! I bet a detonation of some sort set this off, too!"

"But, why? I can in some way understand someone blowing up the transmission lines, but to just randomly blow up the side of a cliff?"

"Maybe someone had built some kind of installation here, too? There must have been something in that huge crater down there, with all the pieces of metal lying about, so why not something else up here?"

"Yeah, maybe! A damn shame, anyway! The power line is bad enough, but explosions and strange installations in the park really disturbs the wildlife!"

"Hey, Shego!" Kim hissed. "I just new you were back to being an evil villain! You built a particle accelerator in a nature reserve, without permission! Think of all the widdle cutesie animals you've scared!"

"Shut it, Possible!"

The two men by the jeep started using a com-radio.

"Ranger HQ from Unit 5! Ranger HQ, come in!"

After a while, a burst of static answered the call.

"Unit 5 to Ranger HQ, we need to notify the grid company and the Marshal! The cables are down for maybe 300 metres, and there seems to have been a lot of explosions. It looks almost like a battlefield up here!"

Another burst of static.

"Yes, roger that! We'll stay until they arrive!"

Static, again.

"OK, Ranger HQ! Over and out!"

"So, Kimmie," Shego whispered, "I think it's Smokey Bear and his pals! It might actually be safe to ask for help, now!"

"Yeah, but better not use the Kimmunicator anyway. It would be safer to just get the attention of the Rangers, instead!"

Shego hesitated. "So, you mean.....?"

"I'm afraid so. We just shout for help!"

Both women shamefacedly resorted to the time-honoured tactic of every damsel in distress, screaming at the top of their voices. "Help! Over here! Get us out of here!!"

==##0##==

They quickly established contact with the Ranger patrol, but it was a slow job getting out of the rock-fall. The layer of stone was deep, and with every rock removed there was the danger that the rest of the jumble could start sliding, crushing the people beneath.

An ambulance helicopter arrived after about two hours, and the emergency services flew in a large crew, but it was soon evident that digging away the rocks by hand would take a really long while.

It was not until the power company airlifted some construction machinery to the site some hours later that progress began to be made. And still, the excavation proceeded with all the speed on an archaeological investigation.

Flood-lighting and diggers were added to the line-up of equipment, but it was not until the small hours of the night that Kim suddenly realised she could see the night sky and found herself free to move again.

"I'm fine, don't worry about me!" was the first thing she said when the workers lifted her out of her hole in the ground. "Take care of my friend, instead, and watch it with her broken legs!"

Kim waved vaguely towards where Shego's voice led her to believe the green-tinged woman was hidden.

"Don't worry, we'll get her out! Just you come with us and let us take care of you!"

She was led away to the ambulance helicopter by polite but insistent EMT's, and given all sorts of medical attention.

The power line clearing and the valley that ran down towards it lay in darkness. It was actually even darker than in Middleton when the blackout struck, but out here in the wilderness, the gentle moonlight seemed much more appropriate. Kim could pick out the lay of the land without problems, except that everything was a grainy shade of black or silvery grey. The air was cool and smelled of vegetation, except where plumes of diesel exhaust from the equipment blew over the site.

The helicopter and the site of the rockslide were bathed in harsh light from flood-lights that had been brought in, and the portable power generators added their snarl to the rumble of jeeps and diggers.

It was a strange mix of idyllic woodlands and what seemed more like a construction site.

To Kim, it was all extremely beautiful.

Half an hour later, Shego also arrived at the helicopter, carried on a stretcher. She looked pale, so pale that she wasn't really green anymore, but had the complexion of a piece of printer paper. She seemed exhausted, and Kim thought she must have put a lot of effort into pretending that she wasn't badly hurt at all. Annoying, to be sure, but Kim wouldn't have expected anything else from the fierce and proud ex-villain, if ex she actually was.

"Hi there, Pumpkin!" Shego croaked hoarsely. "All OK?"

"Fine, Shego, just spankin'!"

The medical personnel immediately abandoned Kim, and started immobilising Shego's broken bones in preparation for transport.

"Listen, Kimmie, could I ask you something?"

"Yeah, as long as it's not about Rufus and my love life!"

"Funny! No, a favour: Would you go with me in the chopper, to the hospital? I ... don't think I'm really ... out of the woods, yet? These guys in black? They seem to turn up where you least expect them. And I can't really run away from them, at the moment... "

Kim made a show of thinking, but for the teen hero that she was, even having just turned twenty, there was really no alternative. Of course she would help and comfort whoever asked her for it, even her foremost adversary.

"Sure, Shego! I'll come hold you hand! They'll probably take you to Middleton University Hospital, anyway, so it's just on my way home!"

Shego let the teasing slide and just looked Kim steadily in the eyes. "Thanks, Kim", she said simply.

And Kim Possible was trapped, again. Not underground, and not in any obvious danger, but trapped none the less, by her own very nature and her need to help those that seemed to need it. And for the first time ever, Shego allowed herself to show that she actually needed and wanted help.

Yes, Kim Possible was trapped.

==##0##==

A/N: And that was chapter 4! Thanks for reading! Hope you are up for some more!

I do have a synopsis for the complete story, but writing each part of it seems to take more words than I had realised. Worst case scenario; this will be a looong story!


	5. Chapter 5

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN**** AGENDA**

"_The killing was the best part. It was the dying I couldn't take".  
Craig Volk, 1991, for the TV series "Northern Exposure"_

**Chapter ****five, which shows things coming to a head and the sitch going from bad to worse. **

Kim Possible was worried.

Along with Shego, she had been savagely attacked by some paramilitary group with more than adequate resources in arms, transport and personnel.

Shego, her foremost adversary, lay beside her in the ambulance helicopter as a silent testimony to the determined effort the black-clad operatives hade made to end their lives. An IV drip was attached to her left arm. Her legs were encased in what looked like knee-high slalom boots to keep the crushed bones of her lower legs from moving. The EMT had said that there were indications of internal bleeding from the rocks that had hit her in the abdomen after a 10 metre drop from the sheer cliff. She looked like shit, and to Kim it drove home the seriousness of the sitch, to see the seemingly indestructible super-powered villainess laid so low.

The thing that worried Kim Possible the most, though, was that they had been trapped in a landslide without being able to extricate themselves. They had had to wait to be rescued by others, and this made a serious dent in the confidence of the no-longer teen-aged hero who could do anything.

She was up against some nasty people and had not been able to defeat them or get away on her own. Not even with Shego's help.

Yes, Kim Possible was worried.

==##0##==

The ambulance helicopter took of into the gray light just before the dawn on the Monday morning after Kim's return to Middleton. As she had promised, she was accompanying Shego to the hospital. She was watching out for the long-standing enemy who seemed uncharacteristically helpless at the moment.

The helicopter ride was noisy, even more so than her trip in Nellie the autogyro. At least she had shelter from the cold and the wind where she sat beside Shego's stretcher, with an EMT opposite her. A machine for measuring heartbeat, blood pressure and other vital signs made various beeping sounds that were all but lost in the background roar of the engine and the pulsing noise of the spinning rotors.

"Kimmie?" Shego's voice was not much more than a hoarse whisper, and Kim leaned forward to hear what the injured woman wanted.

"Kimmie, is it just me or is it really, really cold in here?"

Since an efficient heater was going full blast, Kim looked confusedly at the EMT before answering.

"It's not that cold, Shego. In fact, it's quite hot in here!"

"Shit, shit, shit! This is bad!"

Kim touched the back of her hand to Shego's forehead, and found the pale skin moist and cold to the touch.

"She's at just under 37 centigrade," the EMT said, looking at the monitors. "That's not unusual after such a long exposure in these conditions."

"It is for me! My metabolism is kind of special, and I very seldom have temperatures under 40! Something's very wrong!"

The medic started checking the read-outs and fumbling for syringes to inject something into Shego's IV.

"Hey, stop that! No drugs! What have you been giving me?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary. Mostly liquids, since you were quite dehydrated. Some antibiotics, to be on the safe side. Some painkillers. And a dose of muscle relaxant, to keep your legs as still as possible."

"What muscle relaxant? Show me!"

The EMT held the label on an empty glass vial where Shego could see it. "2-hydroxy-3-(2-methoxyphenoxy)propyl carbamate....? Oh, shit! This is Methocarbamol, isn't it? Do you know what this does to me? Princess, do you know what he's done?"

Kim shook her head, a bit frightened by Shego's obvious distress.

"This works by dampening the nerve signals in the limbs! It has relaxed my muscles, all right, but it has also blocked my plasma powers! Not only am I now totally defenceless, I also cannot draw on my powers to speed up my healing! He's screwed me up good!"

"Take it easy, Shego, it'll surely wear off, won't it?" Kim said. "How long will the drug stay in her system?"

"I dunno, perhaps a day and a half? Two at the most, I'd think. Look, I'm sorry, that was just standard procedure in case of a trauma like this. How was I to know it would be contraindicated for you? If you know there are drugs that you should not take, you should really be wearing a dog-tag with that info, or a card like those carried by sufferers of epilepsy."

Shego gave the EMT a look that managed to be both highly threatening and extremely weary.

"Shego, don't worry!" Kim said. " You heard the guy; the effect is only for a day or two! And we can surely get GJ to protect you while you're hospitalized! I can stay till they get there, if that makes you feel better!"

Shego closed her eyes wearily. "Protected by the GJ!" she muttered. "This is surely the final humiliation!"

==##0##==

The helicopter landed on the helipad on the roof of Middleton University Hospital at about five thirty on the Monday morning. It was almost twenty-four hours since Kim had stood waiting for Mr. Barnstormer at the SmartyMart parking lot.

Shego was quickly wheeled away on a waiting gurney, while Kim was led to an examination room to check her various cuts and scratches.

An elderly nurse was cleaning the scrapes on Kim's left shoulder with disinfectant when Mrs. Dr. P. walked in.

"Mum! Hi! What are you doing here?"

"Why, Kimmie, I came to see you, of course!"

"How did you know I was here?"

"Oh, you know I have a pager! They always let me know whenever you are on your way in for some reason! Happens more often than I'd really like, too. So, how are you?"

"I'm fine! Just a few scratches! Shego was pretty badly hurt, though!"

"Shego, the green woman that taught at you high school? What did you do to her?"

"Oh, I did nothing! Er … A mountain fell on us!"

Dr. Anne Possible processed this information in silence for a few seconds.

"I must admit, Kimmie, that was a new one! A mountain fell on you?"

"Well, not by itself! You see, there was this jet fighter strike force, and black helicopters! With ATG's! And they…" Kim tried to illustrate the flight patterns with hand gestures, nearly hitting the nurse in the mouth.

"Whoa, Kimmie, stop! Let's save it until your dad gets home for dinner, then you'll only have to explain it once!"

"Okey doke, Mum! No big! Say, I'm gonna stick around a while and look after Shego for a bit! You think you could drive me home, later, by lunch-time or so?"

"Well, we'll have to see if you are all right, then, but sure! If you are allowed to go home, I can take you!"

"Spankin', Mum! See you later, then!"

==##0##==

Kim had been given a clean set of hospital issue underwear and a t-shirt in surgical green, but was still wearing her mission trousers and the leather jacket. She found the cafeteria on the ground floor open, and treated herself to a large and probably unhealthy breakfast. The convenience store offered a selection of paperbacks and Kim bought one with a particularly outlandish cover. According to the text on the back, it was about a beautiful, kick-ass heroine and her dealings with evil sexy vampires and violent werewolves. Sounded like just what she needed to soothe her nerves.

Thus armed with something to occupy herself, and with a full belly, she went in search of Shego, finding her in a small private room on the fifth floor of the west wing.

The former villainess had been cleaned up and given hospital clothes, and was now in bed, talking to a man in GJ uniform that Kim did not recognise. An orderly was fussing about, arranging stuff on the bedside table.

The conversation was rather one-sided, and definitely not amicable.

"Look, I'll say it again, I cannot pull people in from the field just to babysit you! We have a big operation going on, searching for your crazy partner, and I don't have any resources to spare!"

Shego just glared at him in answer.

"Besides, you are in a large hospital with its own security service and nurses and doctors everywhere. There's no reason for you to worry!"

Shego narrowed her eyes.

"Well, that's the way it's going to be, anyway! You can just sit there and sulk until we come for you!" The GJ man leaned closer, getting into Shego's face despite her ferocious scowl. "And remember this – you were found in the middle of a serious situation, possibly involving terrorism. I don't know about this so called amnesty of yours, but it seems highly suspicious to me! Merits an investigation, don't you agree? And if we find you have so much as violated a non-smoking regulation with your damn glow, you're going down for good! Get it, glow-worm?"

"Hey," Kim interrupted, "I was there! I can assure you we were the ones attacked, and not the other way around!"

"Save it for the court, girlie!"

Kim was stunned. "Let me tell you, that's not the kind of attitude I'd expect from the GJ!" she said while pulling out her Kimmunicator. "Wade, are you there? Can you get me a line to Dr. Director?"

"Good luck with that, kid! Mrs. Director is no longer in any way associated with the Global Justice Agency! And good riddance, too!"

Kim looked at the GJ man in silence for a long time, forgetting her call to Wade. "Give me you name and rank," she finally growled, "and then get the hell out of here!"

"Hunter, ma'm, Lieutenant Hunter." He gave her a vicious smile, turned on his heel and marched out.

"Why, Princess, I'm shocked! Such language!"

"Well, I'm shocked, too. That man would have been peeling potatoes in the HQ canteen now if Dr. Director had been in charge!"

"Yes, dear old Betsy! She always was one for playing it nice..."

The entertainment apparently over, the orderly finished whatever he was doing, and also left.

Kim sighed and sank down into the one chair in the room that looked remotely comfortable.

"Not going so well, is it? How're your legs? And your temperature?"

Shego muttered her answer towards the wall. "Legs are better now that they are in proper casts. Plasma is still out. And I'm still pissed!"

"Don't worry, I'll just sit here and read my book until someone responsible decides to show up!"

"Thanks, Kimmie!" Shego said in a very small voice, still turned towards the wall.

==##0##==

Despite her worries, Shego soon fell asleep. Kim soon found that her paperback was not really that exciting compared to her everyday life, and dozed in her chair.

Time passed slowly, until Kim found herself needing to use the _en suite_ bathroom. She slipped away silently, to avoid waking Shego up, and did her business. Afterwards, she washed her face in cold water in an attempt to wake up properly. It would soon be lunch-time, and she would have to decide if she should go home with her Mum, or stay with Shego. She leaned on the washstand and looked at herself in the mirror, trying to make her mind work.

Suddenly, she heard someone enter the room behind her. She glanced out through the door she had left a little ajar and saw a male nurse walking up to Shego's bed. For some reason, Kim hesitated instead of going out to talk to him.

The nurse filled a syringe from a small bottle and went over to the IV stand. Just as he leaned forward to add the content of the syringe to the drip, however, Shego woke up.

"Hey!" she exclaimed. "No more drugs! Didn't they tell you I didn't want no more drugs?"

"Don't worry," the nurse said, "it's just a painkiller."

"Read my lips, Buster – No. More. Drugs!"

The nurse, however, didn't back down, and Shego quickly grabbed his wrist with one hand and removed the syringe with the other. Even injured and without her superpowers, Shego was quite strong, and it was obvious from his expression that the nurse didn't enjoy the crushing grip.

"Back off, Florence Nightingale, and show some respect for customer choice, here!"

The nurse started backing away, and Shego let go, satisfied that she had made her point. There was a tense moment when they locked eyes and just measured each other in silence.

Then the nurse slowly reached into his pocket and withdrew a pistol with a large silencer. Kim froze.

"You should really follow the doctor's prescriptions, you know! Now we'll just have to do this the hard way!" He brought the gun up and took careful aim at Shego's heart.

Shego instantly threw herself off the bed in total disregard for her injuries, and without paying any attention to the IV drip and the cables that connected her to the various monitoring equipment. She ended flat up on the floor, with the bed between her and her aggressor. The machinery started beeping frantically, reacting to the sudden disappearance of the patient.

Shego's dive snapped Kim out of her daze. She wasn't going to stand idle when some unknown bastard killed her best enemy. It took just two steps to get in range, and then her right foot kicked the gun wide. It clattered to a stop in the corner by the foot of the bed.

The man switched targets and looked his gaze with Kim's. "Oh, another little wildcat, eh?"

He now drew a vicious-looking knife from another pocket and advanced on the redheaded hero in a crouching stance.

Kim was well practiced in many forms of combat, but she didn't have much experience of knife-fights. She quickly discovered that it was quite a different story blocking the sweeps and stabs of a sharp blade, and stopping unarmed fists and feet. In the current situation, any kind of contact would prove painful and disabling, while she was used to blocking punches with her forearms and body.

With a flick of the wrist, the man inflicted a nasty cut across her left shoulder, showing her that she had better come up with another tactic if she wanted to get out of this without further injury.

While she was fighting, Kim was dimly aware of Shego scrabbling about behind the bed. The broken legs obviously made it impossible for her to join the fight on Kim's side, however, and Kim was on her own, here.

Kim received another cut from the knife, this time across the right thigh. She was coming to realise that she was in serious trouble, the more so as the fake nurse had now managed to back her up against the wall by the bathroom door.

The man seemed to understand that he had his opponent cornered. He slowed down and straightened up before coming in for the kill.

At that moment, there was a loud pop, and the face of the would-be killer erupted in a spray of blood and gore. The man hit the wall hard before slipping to the floor in a heap. A lot of blood ended up on Kim's face and the front of her shirt.

Kim had some trouble comprehending what had happened.

Shego was kneeling behind the bed, the still smoking pistol in a two-handed grip and her elbows planted on the mattress for stability. She looked wild and wide-eyed.

"Sh ... Shego! You shot him!"

"Yeah, Pumpkin, I did!"

"You killed him! With a gun!"

"I know, Kim, I know!"

The door flew open and a crowd of nurses, doctors and security burst into the room.

Kim summed up the sitch. "Oh, crap!"

She began to be really worried.

==##0##==

A/N. Oh, my! Things are really going badly, here! There are evidently people that are very determined to remove Shego from the world of the living. Hope this isn't too shocking. There are some really dark streaks in the story.

Anyway, please read and review! I'm desperately in need of some feedback, here!


	6. Chapter 6

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN**** AGENDA**

"_Right! CHARGE! [squeak squeak/Aaaaugh!, Aaaugh!, etc.] RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!..."  
King Arthur, leading his knights in battle, from the 1975 movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail._

**Chapter ****six, bringing us to a momentous choice and a point of no return. **

Kim Possible was confused.

The last few days had taken her on an emotional roller coaster ride from happiness to despair. She had come face to face with changes in her relationship with her long time friends. Shego had told her a strange tale of a dangerous enemy, who had promptly put in an appearance. She learned Dr. Director had left Global Justice and the GJ Lieutenant she had met had not inspired confidence in the new regime.

But, most importantly, she had seen a man die before her very eyes. Like, two feet in front of her very eyes. Shego had shot him in the head, perhaps to save Kim's life, perhaps to save herself. Anyway, he was dead, and Kim couldn't really say if she was appalled or relieved.

It is a shocking experience to be confronted with violent death in such a way. On the other hand, the man **had** tried to stab her to death with a knife. Her emotions were in turmoil; relief and despair spun in her mind like unmatched socks in a tumble drier.

Yes, Kim Possible was very confused.

==##0##==

The body had been removed. The rude GJ Lieutenant was back, together with hospital security and an officer of the Middleton Police Dept. Kim's mother had looked in to assure herself that her daughter was all right, but had been asked to leave.

"Look," Shego shouted, "I don't care about your excuses! If you had done as I asked you, none of this would have happened!!"

"I do not need to explain myself to you! I do my job, and you shut up, that's the way I want it! And you should be happy – you will soon get your squad of agents to watch you! To take you into custody as soon as you are released from the hospital!!"

Shego lay back with a groan, resting her head on the pillows. Kim looked on in silence.

"Remember what I said about your amnesty?" the agent continued in a softer voice. "How we would get you for good if you as much as violated a no smoking regulation? Well, we caught you with a smoking gun in your hand, a nurse dead on the floor in front of you. I would say that was plenty serious, wouldn't you?"

"Hey!" Kim interrupted, "he tried to kill us! It was clearly self defence! And the situation arose because you didn't see fit to allocate us any protection!"

"Yeah, so you say! I only see a dead man, and a killer who has just brought all her old charges crashing down on her head!"

"Hey, there's no jury in the legal system that won't call this justifiable self defence!"

"Jury? You think she'll get a jury?" His voice dropped even lower, until it was just a menacing whisper. "With the new GJ charter against serious crime and terrorism, what she'll get is a quick hearing behind closed doors, and an early morning appointment with a firing squad!"

Kim couldn't believe her ears. The policeman looked a bit uncomfortable.

"And justifiable self defence?" Lt. Hunter switched his attention to the injured Shego. "Did you call out a warning, perhaps? Did you fire a warning shot? Perhaps you shot him in the leg to slow him down a bit? No, right, you blew away his head, first shot! Perhaps a little excessive, hm?" He poked Shego in the chest with his index finger. "You, my green, vicious bitch, are as good dead! And good riddance!"

With that, he briskly stood up. "You," he told the policeman, "stand guard until the GJ transport arrives. And stay alert!"

With that, he left the room, together with the hospital security guard.

==##0##==

Kim sat down in the chair beside Shego's bed. Had GJ been such a ruthless organisation all the time, only she'd never noticed? Had her missions in collaboration with Dr. Director not been part of the serious business of the agency? Had they just been about stopping a few harmless lunatics while the brutal attitude shown by Lt. Hunter had been the true face of the crime fighting organisation all along? Kim couldn't believe it. Something must have happened in the past year and a half since she had last seen Dr. Director.

She glanced at Shego, who just lay there in her bed, looking quite defeated.

"Look," the police officer said, fingering his communication radio, "I'll be just outside the door. You can have a few minutes to yourselves."

Kim nodded. Perhaps he wanted to talk to dispatch, and ask about the jurisdiction of GJ. Kim had little hope that this would change the situation much.

"Well, Princess," Shego said as the policeman closed the door, "that seems to be it. It's even worse than I feared."

Kim did not answer. She was thinking furiously.

"Kim? You should just get away from here. You have no charges hanging over you, and you didn't pull the trigger. I might be "dangerous criminal" enough to fall into the clutches of the GJ, but you should just walk."

Kim still didn't answer. Instead she stood up and removed what looked like a powder compact from one of her pockets. She pulled the chair out into the middle of the room.

"Eh ... Kim? What are you doing?"

Kim just put her finger across her lips to call for silence, and climbed up on the chair. She held the open powder compact up to the ceiling and blew sharply. A puff of peach-coloured dust formed in the air, just under the smoke detector.

The fire alarm instantly went off, together with the sprinkler system. A chorus of frightened and indignant voices could be heard from outside the room.

Kim kicked the chair away and jumped for the corner at the hinged side of the door, just as the policeman burst inside, looking almost comically surprised.

In one fluid moment, Kim stabbed him behind the left ear with her rigidly extended fingers. The policeman continued forward with his momentum, and stretched out full length on the floor.

"Pumpkin? Are you out of your mind?"

"Shut up, Torchy! Just wait right there!"

And with that, KP slipped quietly out of the door.

==##0##==

The hospital ward was in chaos. The nurse at the station by the main doors was speaking frantically on the phone, while some of the staff were trying to make all visitors and walking patients leave by the stairs. Most of the nurses and orderlies, however, were running from room to room, trying to find the fire that had triggered the alarm.

"I'll just borrow this one, OK?" Kim said to the nurse. She just waved her hand and continued shouting into the telephone.

As Kim passed the coat hangers by the restrooms, she snagged a white coat with a name tag on it and bundled it against her chest. Soon she was back inside the room.

Shego sat up in her bed, looking confused, water from the sprinkler nozzles plastering her long hair against her face and body.

"Get out of there and sit yourself in this!" Kim ordered in a brisk voice, shrugging into the coat.

"Kim, you shouldn't be doing this!"

"As I said, shut up! And do as I say! We do not have a lot of time to get out of here!"

"Kim, this isn't really the smart thing to do, you know?"

But the read-headed hero was not inclined to discuss the issue. She grabbed Shego by the shoulders and pulled her roughly down into the wheelchair.

"Ow, Pumpkin! Shit, that hurts!"

"Less than the bullets from the firing squad, no? Now, shut up and sit still!"

They went out through the door, Kim moving quickly without running. There were such a lot of people bustling about in the cold showers of the sprinkler system that nobody noticed them. The water had started pooling on the floor, and the rubber tyres of the wheelchair squelched as they approached the service elevators at the end of the corridor.

Everyone else seemed to obey the standing instructions not to use the elevators in case of fire, and nobody even noticed them leaving the ward.

==##0##==

At the ground floor, Kim began moving a bit slower. She flipped her wet hair out of her face, and wheeled Shego down a sequence of corridors lined with closed doors. They left a trail ow puddles behind them. After a couple of turns, she found a door she recognised.

"Wait here a minute," she said and disappeared inside.

When she emerged again, she was wearing a tan trench-coat instead of the white hospital coat, jingling a bunch of keys in the pocket.

"Come on, Sheegs, we're outta here!"

A door at the back of the building let them out onto the employee car park. Kim pressed the button on the car keys she had found in the coat pocket, and a dark blue Lexus promptly answered with a 'Blip' and a blink of the lights.

Shego had stopped protesting, but couldn't help whimpering in pain as Kim roughly bundled her into the front passenger seat.

There was some commotion by the door to the hospital, and they saw three police cruisers with their lights flashing by the main hospital entrance as they tore out of the parking lot and accelerated towards the highway. The whole thing had taken no more than ten minutes, from the time Kim made up her mind what to do, and until now, speeding away in her mother's car.

==##0##==

The Crossroads Motel was not an up-market establishment.

It was located a few miles out from Lowerton, and as the name indicated the most important feature close by was the crossroads where the old US 287 branched off from the East-West motorway. A gas station, a sleazy fast-food diner and a liquor store were the only other businesses on the site.

Most, but not all, of the customers were the drivers of long-hauls caught by fatigue before they made it to a better accommodation.

The clerk at the reception hadn't asked any questions at all when Kim paid for a double room for the night. Quite a few of the other customers in the Motel was probably also young women who rented rooms in the company of someone who remained in the car and slunk furtively inside the room.

Now, Shego was lying in the middle of the lumpy double bed, waiting for Kim to come back.

Kim had taken off immediately to get rid of the car. She did hope that her mother would not report it missing when she understood what had happened, but the risk was too great.

She had also told Shego that she needed to get some supplies and some food, and arrange for transport the next day.

When Shego had asked if her tame computer geek couldn't arrange a ride for them, Kim had just shaken her head. "No," she had said, "it isn't fair and it's probably not even safe to ask him for that. We're on our own, now!"

And then she had left. It was now eight o'clock in the evening, and Shego had begun to worry. Perhaps Kim had been picked up by the police? Or perhaps she had had second thoughts, and just decided to get out and leave Shego to manage as best she could?

The sudden noise of a car with a misfiring engine and a broken muffler pulling up just outside the room answered Shego's question. The brakes scraped, metal on metal, and the door rattled badly on all the three tries it took to shut it.

Kim entered triumphantly. "Ta-daa!", she said, depositing a bunch of paper bags at the foot of the bed. "We got ourselves a ride!"

"I heard you pulling up. Exactly **what** is it, though?"

"Oh, it's a classic! An old VW bug!"

Shego made a grimace. "So, you got Herbie the Love Bug to help in our escape from the law?"

"Well, if that's him, someone must have treated him pretty badly lately. And painted him orange, too!"

"How did you get it? You didn't steal it, did you?" Shego asked, suddenly suspicious.

"No, I bought it, actually. At the junk-yard down by the railroad tracks. It was the best I could afford after buying food, clothes and some other stuff!"

"You bought it at the scrap-heap? Didn't you think there might be a reason or two it was there in the first place?"

"Sure, but we just need it for a day or two, so I'm hoping it will be all right. And don't you worry, I kicked all the tires before closing the deal!"

"Princess, next time we need a car, please let me steal one in working condition! It's not like a car theft or two will really matter among all the other charges against me, now, is it?"

Kim pouted. "It's a nice little car! The man did promise that it had belonged to a vicar's wife, who only used it on Sundays to drive to church, too."

"Sure, Kim. According the used-car salesmen of America, 75% of the population must be members of the clergy!"

"Don't be so negative, Shego! Let's eat something and I'm sure you'll feel better"

Kim began arranging sandwiches, soft drinks, chocolate bars and packets of crisps on the cover of the bed. Shego didn't have much of an appetite, but started gnawing a dry and stale BLT sandwich just to please Kim. To her surprise, she found that she was quite hungry. Neither Kim nor Shego had gotten any lunch, what with all the commotion of the assassination attempt, and most of the stuff Kim had bought was soon finished.

"Ah, that's better, isn't it, Flames?"

"Princess, please, please, _please_, let me handle the nicknames department? I cannot believe what horrors you're coming up with!"

An insane grin spread over Kim's face. "Okey doke, Sparky, sure thing! Let's just continue with the make-over instead! Can you sit here by the desk?"

"Kimberly Anne Possible, what are you planning to do now?" Shego said in a world-weary voice.

"See, we're not exactly hard to recognise, neither of us! So I've gotten some hair dye, brushes and scissors and stuff, and a bunch of make up! Just sit here quietly and let me do you over!"

Kim spread a large piece of paper on the floor, the kind painters use to cover the furniture when they work, and put the chair on top. Shego gave a huge sigh. "I'm not sure I like the way you just said that, but OK, then. We do need some sort of disguise, I guess."

"I'm glad you realise that!" Kim said and picked a machine out of a cardboard box.

"Pumpkin!!" Shego shrieked in horror. "It's a bloody poodle trimmer!"

"Yeah, I know! You do have rather a lot of hair, you know."

Shego closed her eyes. She could not bear to watch what Kim was going to do to her beautiful hair.

==##0##==

It took almost an hour of cutting, brushing, curling and applying make-up, but Kim was finally happy with her work.

"Shego? You can look now."

Shego opened her eyes and looked at the mirror in amazement.

"Why, Cupcake? It looks ... good?"

Kim had given her a short, almost boyish haircut, but the slightly longer hair at the nape of her neck and on top of her head had been tightly curled. The bangs just over her forehead had been left the longest, and fell in a rakish tumble towards the side of her face. Liberal application of fake sun-tan, powder and rouge gave her a dark, Latino complexion. Shego was stunned.

"Here! Coloured contacts! I couldn't really change the colour of your hair, since it is so dark to begin with, but I'd be surprised if even Dr. Drakken would recognise you now!"

Shego snorted. "Drakken wouldn't recognise his own is winkle if he happened upon it unprepared!"

"Still, looks OK, doesn't it? Dolores Gomez, you are a hottie!"

"Ack! Didn't I tell you to lay of with the names? Why the hell did you just call me Dolores?"

"Well, it's no good fixing a good disguise if I were to go around calling you Shego, now? It's like kind of a giveaway?"

"But - _Dolores Gomez_?"

"Well, Gomez, like for "Go", you know? And Dolores just so I can call you Dolly!" Kim told her with a shit-eating grin.

"Aagh! Go dye your hair, and then come back and sit down on the floor by my feet. I'll meet out a proper punishment for you!"

"Sure thing, Dolly dear!"

==##0##==

It took longer to fix Kim's hair, since Shego could neither stand nor move about easily. By midnight, however, there was no sign of the thick mane of red hair that was such a signature look for the hero.

Kim was now blond, and had her hair in a shorter style similar to Mrs. Dr. P. The coloured contact lenses made her eyes bright blue, while Shego's were now a deep reddish brown.

"Well, well, look at you, little Ms. Pleasant!"

"Pleasant?"

"Yeah, Susan Pleasant!" Shego said with a snicker.

"Really, Dolly! Sue's un-pleasant?"

Shego let herself fall backwards on the bed, cackling with evil villain laughter. "I said I would come up with a proper punishment, didn't I?"

Kim hit her across the face with a pillow.

==##0##==

Kim removed all traces of their makeovers. There was an enormous amount of hair, but it had all fallen on the paper Kim had spread out under the chair, so it was easily removed.

She helped Shego out of her clothes and gave her an XXL green t-shirt to use as pyjamas. She had gotten herself similar but pink nightwear.

They lay down in the king-sized bed and Kim spread the blankets over both of them.

"Dolly?"

"Grr?"

"I actually think it's going to be all right! We got clean away, and we have a car that won't be traced to either of us in a hurry! We look great, and not in the least like ourselves. In fact, it's probably not us at all, here, but two other people entirely!"

"Princess, you know that you're totally crazy, right?"

Kim giggled. "Yeah, totally!"

"Lucky for me, I guess. If you weren't such a loony, you wouldn't have helped me get away, would you?"

"Nope! Probably not. But, you know what? I actually think I did the right thing."

"Sure, Susie! You always do the right thing, don't you?"

==##0##==

Kim was kind of glad that Shego thought so, but in her own mind she was far from sure. OK, it was clear that what was in store for Shego was totally unacceptable. She couldn't really stand aside and let that happen. On the other hand, she had probably not yet realised all the consequences of what she had done. Until she set off the fire alarm, she could have been in some trouble, but basically she would have been all right in the end.

Now she had aided a murderer escape, assaulted a policeman and stolen a car, even if it had been her mother's. And even if Shego hadn't committed a murder as far as she could see. No, Shego had actuallyher life.

But without really noticing at the time, she had stepped across a line and was now a criminal herself. What would this mean for her life? Could she ever go back to university? Would she even see her parents again?

If they got caught, there would be a trial and probably some time in prison. Would she be welcome back?

And if they were _not_ caught, would that mean that she would have to keep running? All the rest of her life, a fugitive from justice?

It had been a quick decision, and it had taken just a couple of minutes to commit to something that would change her life fundamentally. What had she done? And why?

Silent tears trickled down her cheeks.

And while Shego soon fell into an exhausted slumber, Kim lay awake for a long time. She was very confused. And she was trapped in a different life, just as tightly as she had been trapped under the rockslide just 24 hours before.

==##0##==

A/N. Yes, perhaps you saw this coming. KP on the wrong side of the law. But not because she's turned evil, rather the opposite. I did warn you there are some really dark streaks in the story.

Anyway, please read and review! I'm desperately in need of some feedback, here!


	7. Chapter 7

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

"_He who would travel happily must travel light."  
Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900 – 1944)_

**Chapter seven, which shows the start of a journey, and some rocks on the road. **

Kim Possible had made up her mind.

She could be very determined once she had decided what had to be done. She knew Ron would rather call her 'stubborn' and 'single-minded', and begin to mutter something about 'natural Kimness', but she preferred to see it as perseverance and the ability to focus.

And she really needed all of that in her current situation.

She had lain awake for quite a few hours, wrestling with her options. As a result, she was now extremely tired. It hadn't helped that Shego had woken her up twice, after she did manage fall asleep, needing to be carried to the bathroom.

Yes, she was tired. But she had thought things through, and was now almost her usual confident self again. What was done couldn't be changed, but she had had found a way out. She had a mission plan in her head, even if she wasn't sure that Shego would entirely approve. Still, she knew what to do, now.

Yes, Kim Possible had made up her mind.

==##0##==

So, Kim Possible could be very determined once she had decided what had to be done.

Fortunately, she was also quite strong. Both strength and determination was sorely needed at the moment.

The VW Bug had performed well for several hours. Kim had packed their few belongings and carried Shego out to the passenger seat in the early hours of the morning. Shego, or rather Dolores, was wearing a tight red top, a short jacket, and a long, black skirt. This was not her usual style, which she did not hesitate to point out, but there wasn't much choice. The casts on her legs made trousers an impossible alternative.

Kim was wearing jeans, t-shirt and a blue hoodie with UCLA written on the chest.

She was considering removing the hoodie now, though, because she was getting very hot and sweaty.

"Hey, Sue!" Shego hollered from the driver's seat, "can you put a little more 'vrooom' into it? I want to overtake that hedgehog ahead of us!"

"I'll put a little 'Vrooom' upside your head!" Kim muttered at the back of the car, from where she had been pushing it along for quite some time now.

Buying a car from the junk-yard had turned out to be less than a bargain. It was now in the middle of the afternoon, and the engine had quite emphatically died about half an hour ago. Since they had decided to go by the back roads, they now found themselves stuck in the middle of nowhere, out on the plains south-east of Lowerton. They couldn't very well use Kim's cell phone to call for assistance. They couldn't just get out and start walking, either, because of Shego's broken legs.

It was a sitch that really needed all her determination and Kimness, especially since Shego didn't stop needling her about the choice of car and her lack of judgement. Shego was behind the wheel, steering and prepared to use the handbrake if necessary. She didn't need to use her feet for that.

Kim, on the other hand, was using her feet rather extensively. Luckily, the landscape was flat as a pancake so she did not need to push the car uphill any time soon. Unfortunately, on the other hand, the landscape was flat as a pancake, and they could easily see that there were no houses or gas stations for miles in any direction.

There wasn't much traffic on the dirt road they had taken, either, and it had been more than an hour since they had seen the last car.

==##0##==

Kim was actually on the verge of giving up when they finally heard a car approaching. She straightened up and prepared to flag it down. Their disguises should be good for at least getting a lift to the nearest town, and they would just have to figure out how to get some new transport when they got there.

Amazingly enough, though, the car turned out to be a small tow truck. It was fairly old and battered, but the faded letters on the doors spelled "Mike's Garage", and there were stickers advertising brands of engine oil, spark plugs, tires and the like all over the vehicle.

The truck pulled in by the roadside just ahead of them, and the driver, presumably Mike himself, got out. He was a rather fat, middle-aged man in greasy coveralls, with short blond hair and very red skin, but he was a welcome sight in Kim's eyes.

"Hi there, ladies! Outta gas?"

"Oh, Could you help?" Kim asked sweetly. ""We have plenty of gas, but the engine just kind of totally seized on us."

"Why didn't you just call for assistance with your cell phone? I'm in the book, you know, could have been here real quick for you!"

"Yeah, dead battery, unfortunately. Should teach me not to forget the charger at home, shouldn't it?"

Mike the mechanic opened the hood at the back of the car, and whistled softly. "Lady, what have you been doing to the poor thing? It looks like you've set off a bomb, back here, or something!"

"Looks bad, huh? Is there anything you can do?"

"Not out here, there ain't! I'll need to tow it in. You can all ride up in the front with me, although it'll be a bit of a squeeze."

"Well, you see, my friend doesn't do squeezing all that well at the moment, she's hurt her legs..."

Shego helpfully waved the crutches Kim had gotten for her the evening before, but left in the car for the night.

"Oh, that's all right, she can stay where she is, then, I'll just get your front wheels up on the dolly, and off we go!"

Kim giggled a bit at that, giving Dolores 'Dolly' Gomez a wink. "That'll be just spankin!"

==##0##==

Mike's Garage was located just on the outskirts of the first small town they came to. It looked as old and weathered as the tow truck, and also sold used cars. Very used cars, by the look of it. The VW would feel right at home.

Mike towed the VW up to the middle of the lot and jumped out of the cab, carrying a small briefcase.

He set it by the driver's door of the Bug and took out a book of receipts.

"So, ladies, that'll be twenty bucks for the tow. For the rest, I'll be honest. I could try to repair the car for you, but I seriously doubt it would be worth it. You would be much better off with a new car, and as you can see I have a bit of a choice for you right here."

Kim got out from the passenger side of the VW, and looked around the lot. It might be a wide choice, but mostly between old and older, and more or less crappy.

"Thanks," she said with an innocent smile, "but I'm not sure we can actually afford a new car..."

"Oh, don't worry, I'm sure I have something here that I can make you a good offer on. How about this, for instance? Jeep Cherokee? Not new, granted, but it runs!"

The Cherokee was incredibly rusty. It was a wonder it held together at all. And 'not new' seemed to translate to it being the 1976 model.

"Oh, I' don't know much about cars," Kim said, giving a good impression of air-headed blond. "Is it any good, d'you think?"

"Oh, way better than what you have now. And, come on, I'll give you a good price. What do you say to 4 grand?"

Shego gave a sharp intake of breath. Even Kim could easily see that the quoted price was nothing short of highway robbery.

"A little too expensive, huh? Well, don't you worry, I'm sure we can work something out."

Kim was suddenly very aware of the fact that Mike's Garage was quite a distance from the closest neighbours, and that they were now in the back behind the building itself, not easily visible from the road.

Mike stepped up close beside her.

"Lets make a deal, shall we? I'll swap it for your VW, if only... you could see your way to showing some … proper gratitude, if you take my meaning?"

The meaning was quite clear, especially as Mike now brought up a greasy hand and grabbed her ass.

"Oh, come on, now! Good-looking girl like you! Ain't no other way you can easily buy a car around this town! Just half an hour and you can be on your way!"

His voice had dropped to a soft whisper probably intended to be seductive. He backed Kim up against a large stack of tires and leaned in, clearly intending to kiss her. The hand not groping her behind grabbed her t-shirt and pulled hard.

_Oh, shit, _Kim thought. _Why did this have to happen?_

==##0##==

Suddenly, a flash went off, making the mechanic snap his head around towards the Bug.

"Oops!" Shego said innocently. "Just playing around with your cell phone camera, here!"

She had dumped the contents of Mike's briefcase on the ground beside the car and had been lucky enough to find something useful.

"Give me that, you bitch!" the garage owner shouted, all traces softness gone from his voice. He was so red in the face that Kim almost though he might have a heart seizure.

"Uh-huh!" Shego said, closing and looking the door of the little car. "Not if you can't ask nicely!"

She started quickly pressing the keys on the phone, while Mike furiously pulled at the door-handle, swearing and sweating.

"Now," Shego said sharply. "Listen up, dip-stick! With this button I just sent the snapshot of you and my girlfriend here to a friend of mine! You can't get at it and you can't erase it! I've got it safe!! Now … let's talk about this deal, hm?"

"You dam' bitch! Who do you think you are? Thelma and bloody Louise? Just get the hell out of there and I'll teach you a lesson!"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk! Let's just see what you have, here, on speed dial. Is there a Mrs. Mike, do you think? Or a doting mother, perhaps?"

The colour left the face of the irate mechanic. He went from stop-signal red to white as a sheet, except for the reddish blood vessels on his nose and cheeks. The effect was much like the make-up of a clown, and Kim almost let out a nervous giggle.

"No? Shall we perhaps go over the deal on the Cherokee again then, shall we? I believe you said you'd do a straight swap for the bug?"

Mike leaned his head on the roof of the VW, panting. "OK, take the dam' car. Let's just forget all this, shall we? Just get out of here!"

"We'll take the car, and also a receipt, please! Make it out for … what did you say it was worth? Four thousand? Yeah, write that, date it and sign it, thank yo'!"

The block of receipts was on the ground by the drivers door. Mike grabbed it and wrote quickly.

"Good boy! Now, keys, please? Give them to Sue, there, and let her check that it starts!"

Kim took the keys, and started the Jeep. She left the engine running and got out again, looking at Shego for instructions.

"Very good, Piggy-Boy! Now, give Sue the keys to the truck, and get inside it! … Excellent. Sue, throw them out in the lot, as far as you can, and then come and get me!"

Kim did just that, and then carried Shego over to the Jeep. She got their belongings from the back of the Bug, and jumped in behind the wheel.

"Is there any gas in it? Half full, is it? Then step on it and lets get out of here!"

Kim turned the car around. When she had turned it pointing towards the exit of the lot, Mike had gotten out of his truck again, and was beginning to run after them. It was uncertain what he was hoping to achieve, but he probably wasn't thinking all too clearly.

Shego waved happily with her hand out of the window. "Bye, then, Mikey! Pleasure doing business with you!" she sang out sweetly as Kim pulled out of the lot and on to road with a spin of the tires.

==##0##==

A few miles out of town, Kim pulled over. She went out of the car and started vomiting by the roadside. Shego could only wait for her to finish, not being able to get out of the car on her own.

After a while, Kim came back in and resumed driving. She was pale and shivering, with streaks of tears down her cheeks.

"Kim, we gotta talk," Shego said after a while. Kim said nothing.

"Kim, listen, we've got to decide what we are doing, here."

Still no response.

"Look, I have a suggestion. Just help me get in contact with someone I can trust, and that can lend me some money, and I can get out of the country. There are some places in South America where I could easily disappear. You could walk into any Police Station afterwards, and say I made you do it! You're a hero, they will believe you, And I'll be out of your life, for good!"

"No."

"Huh? No? Pumpkin, you're not thinking straight, here!"

"I said no! I don't want to do that. Look, I understand these people with the black jets are dangerous. And I get it, the GJ is now obviously not Mr. Nice Guy anymore. But I refuse to accept what just happened! I just can't accept it! We'll find the black-ops and take them down, and there must be a way to blow the whistle on this new-style GJ bastards!"

"Kim, stop! Do you understand what you are saying? Do you understand how difficult - no, downright impossible - it will be to pull that off?"

"Shut it, Dolly! 'Impossible' is so not my name! Best case scenario, it's just that bastard of a Lieutenant who's a bad apple, and we can easily flush him out! Worst case, the whole bloody agency is bent, and we'll just have to take it elsewhere. I don't know where; Congress perhaps? The press?"

Shego thought for a while, and then sighed.

"Kim, I understand what you want to do, and I sympathise! Believe me, I do! But please think about what it will put you through! Life on the run, without friends, without money, is no picnic! Just think what that filthy sleaze-bag back at the garage nearly did to you!"

"We can get us some money. And I think I have a friend. Don't I?"

Shego groaned and covered her face with both hands.

"Yes, Kim, you have. And don't think I'm not grateful for what you've already done for me. And yeah, I'll regret it, but I will stay with you if you want me to! I owe you that! But please be very sure you want to do this! And be sure to remember it, also, when things start going south! 'Cause, mark my words, they will! This can go so badly, you really have no idea!"

"All right! I'm sure! Can we get on with it, now?"

Shego peeked at Kim over the fingers still covering her face.

"Aw, come on, Dolly! I can do anything, remember?"

"That was a green-eyed, red-head teenage hero, if I recall. Now I'm stuck with this hot young blond and blue-eyed woman. Can she do anything at all, you think?"

"Wait and see! You'll be surprised!"

==##0##==

They continued driving, mostly in silence. After a while, Shego brought up an important question.

"Hey, Princess, where are we going, anyway? You have some place in mind?"

"Yep! I figure we need to lay low for a while, and get us some time to figure things out. And I know just the place."

"You do, huh? Somewhere nobody will think of looking, I hope?"

"I think so. You see, my uncle Slim has a small hunting lodge that he doesn't use all that much. It's really out in the wilderness, up in Wyoming. That's why I've turned us 'round, heading north. There'll be nobody around, I can promise!"

"A bit risky, Pumpkin! He's a relative, after all, and your family must know that you know about it!"

"Dad will never tell. And uncle Slim? He's not really all that keen on talking to the authorities. Nothing special, it's just that people around where he lives like to mind their own business…"

"Hm…"

"Yeah, and there's always a good supply of food and stuff, and some hunting rifles, at the lodge! And we'll hear anyone coming for miles!"

"OK, I give! Food sounds good, at the moment! Let's make for Uncle Slim's cabin, by all means. But if we can't think of a good plan for what you want to do, then promise me that you'll reconsider your options!"

"Oh, we'll think of something! Just look at how brilliant you were, coming up with how to handle Gross Guy, back there!"

"That was luck, Kimmie, just luck! What if he hadn't left his cell phone at my feet, huh? What then?"

"Aw, you'd have thought of something else! Still, a question? Who did you send the photo to?"

"Why, to your Mum, of course! Where did you think I'd send it?"

"Ha-ha, Dolly! I very much doubt you have the number of my mother's cell!"

"Could have!! But no, you're right. I actually sent it to ole man Senior! I figured it would be safe with him. The GJ is not likely to get close enough to snoop in his affairs."

"Good call. I'm not too sure I like the idea of him seeing that picture of me, though."

"Don't worry, he's a gentleman and he has probably seen worse in his days. Now, if Junior were to get hold of it, …"

"Shego!!"

==##0##==

That night, they slept in the car. The less traces they left of their movements, the better. Also, they had to save the very little money they had left.

Kim had learned early on that it could be a very good idea to carry some cash on her missions. She could never be too certain of where she'd end up, or if she would need some money for food, transport or something else.

She hadn't taken all that much on this latest mission, though, mostly expecting it to be no more than a day's flying over the power lines.

The little they had left had to be used for putting gas in the car, first of all. And if they had anything left after that, they could consider eating. All else was a luxury they could ill afford.

Luckily, the Cherokee was quite a big car, much bigger than the VW Bug, Kim had to admit, and they could make themselves more or less comfortable for the night.

"Hey, Kimmie, look!" Shego said just as they had settled in. She held up her hand. Although there were no flames around it, it did take on a pale green light, a bit like the luminous numbers on an old-fashioned alarm clock. "Hey, it's coming back!"

"Booyah! That's a good sign, isn't it?"

"Sure is! I probably shouldn't go about flinging green bolts of plasma around, but if the fire comes back, that means I can start healing fast again!"

"Spankin! If that means that I won't have to carry you out into the bush every time you need to pee, I'm all for it!"

==##0##==

Things were not going too bad, Kim thought. OK, the VW had been a disaster, but now they had a much better car. They knew where they were going. Shego hadn't outright refused to go along with her plan, even if she hadn't exactly been enthusiastic. And if Shego's powers were coming back, she'd soon be on her feet again, wouldn't she?

Yes, all in all, Kim was satisfied with the choices she had made. She couldn't really have done anything else. She wouldn't forget Mike in a hurry, though, and what he had wanted to do to her. Nothing like that had ever happened during any of her previous missions. And she'd make damn sure it never happened again.

Shego's even breathing was testimony to her having fallen quickly asleep. Kim lay awake far a long time that night, too.

==##0##==

A/N. Life on the run is not that easy and not that glamorous. Life sure has a lot of nasty knocks prepared for poor Kim. At least they have some sort of a plan.

Anyway, please read and review! And if I get something wrong about the geography of the US, for instance, please let me know! I've never been to Wyoming in my life!


	8. Chapter 8

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

23. _"The unwise man is awake all night,  
and ponders everything over;  
when morning comes he is weary in mind,  
and all is a burden as ever. "_  
Hávamál, The Words of Odin the High One  
from the Elder or Poetic Edda

**Chapter eight, which brings refuge, a meeting and new directions. **

Kim Possible was tired.

Although she was well used to irregular hours, and long missions with little sleep, there were limits even to her endurance.

The night under the rockslide had not offered much opportunity for sleep. The night after had been the one they spent at the Crossroads Motel, and that had been both short and troubled.

The following night, in their newly acquired Jeep Cherokee, had been better until Kim had woken up from a nightmare, knowing that she was in a car they had gotten from Mike, the garage owner. In the middle of the night, the car had seemed permeated with the presence of the man, and Kim had had to get up and get outside before she could calm down again. It took a long while before she was ready for sleep again.

The day after, they had been in the car, driving, from early morning till late in the evening. They had wanted to put as much distance as possible between them and Middleton, but it was hard on Kim who had to do all the driving. Shego wanted to give it a try behind the wheel, pointing out that she need not put any weight on her feet just to press the gas pedal, but Kim had been adamant - no driving with broken legs in casts.

The second night in the Jeep had been more restful, but still punctuated with expeditions to get Shego outside for calls of nature.

Now, it was late Thursday afternoon, the second day after they had obtained the Cherokee, and Kim was running on willpower alone.

The thought that they might get to the hunting lodge that evening was currently the main thing that kept her awake.

That, and the prospect of finally getting something to eat!

Yes, Kim possible was very tired, but perhaps even worse was that she was incredibly hungry.

==##0##==

They had counted their money, and put aside what they thought would be needed for gas. With five dollars for unforeseen expenses, that had left them 4 dollars 36 cents, in small change, for food.

After some debate, they had agreed that bread would probably give them most value for money, so they had invested in two loaves of pre-sliced white bread, and a small tube of soft cheese spread.

It didn't make for very satisfying meals, especially not with the same menu repeated for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but it kept the worst of the hunger at bay.

Kim went almost crazy with cravings for other food, and they had their first big fight when she broke down and bought a large bag of bacon flavoured crisps at one of their stops.

"Princess, we needed that money! And if you had to spend it, why on earth did you blow it all on snacks?" Shego had demanded. "We could have gotten something good with those five bucks!"

Kim hadn't really been able to handle the situation. She knew that it had been a stupid and unnecessary purchase, but she had been overpowered by temptation. Without any good answer, she had resorted to looking for sympathy, turning up the Puppy Dog Pout.

Shego, however, had not reacted as expected.

"Aaugh!", she had declared, promptly popping Kim right in the nose.

It hadn't been a very hard blow, and Kim had been more surprised than hurt. And after looking at each other in silence for a few moments, they had both broken down in giggles.

"Pumpkin, I'm really sorry! You took me by surprise, is all. What the fuck was that, anyway?"

"Just me looking cute and adorable and worth having whatever I ask for?"

"OK, one: Don't ever do that again! And, two: all right, you can have the crisps! But only half of them, the rest are mine!"

Resolving the crisps crisis had switched them over into banter mode, and they had continued teasing each other. Unwisely, Kim had revealed that her most intense food fantasy at the moment was a craving for baked beans on toast.

"Cupcake, what the fuck? We don't have anything but soggy white bread, but you can dream about anything. You could have a t-bone steak, or a Tornedos Rossini with a side order of green salad! Why on earth would you chose to obsess about beans on toast?"

"'Cause I like it!" Kim had whined. "Hey, as I explained to Ron the other night – poor college student! Must make ends meet! Beans on toast is cheap, and something even I can cook! Bread in the toaster, beans in the micro; serve and eat!"

This had started Shego on a long lecture on the need to eat properly, especially if combined with a rigorous training regime. More disturbingly, it also had Shego enthusiastically singing "beans on toast" to the tune of the Duran Duran eighties hit "Girls on film" over and over again.

But Kim had been quite comfortable with the teasing. That was just like it always was when she had met and fought Shego in the past.

The prospect of having serious conversations with the green-tinted hell-cat, on the other hand, was a bit more daunting. She didn't really know that aspect of Shego at all well.

It was a sobering thought. She had linked her life to that of a former adversary that she didn't even really know, beyond the impersonal taunting they usually exchanged, and she wasn't sure she even liked the woman.

==##0##==

By early evening, Kim recognised the small track leading off the road up to uncle Slim's cabin.

"Nearly there, Dolly!" she announced.

Shego had, unhelpfully enough, dozed off, and woke with a start. "Huh? We there yet?"

"Nearly. It'll take an hour and a half to the cabin itself, but yeah, we're kind of there!"

"An hour and a half on this track! Thank goodness we got four wheel drive!"

"I did tell you the cabin was right out there in the wilderness."

The drive became very rough and bumpy, and Shego grimaced as every jolt hurt her legs. Eventually, after closer to two hours on the very narrow track, they started climbing out of a broad valley towards the top of high but gently rounded hill. Further ahead, just below the top of the hill, a building could be seen.

"There!" Kim exclaimed happily, relieved at the prospect of rest and food.

==##0##==

The cabin was locked, but Kim easily retrieved the key from it's hiding place under the door mat.

She threw their stuff inside and returned for Shego. Carrying the injured woman bridal style, she gave her a short tour of the cabin before depositing her in a chair in the kitchen.

"Why, Princess, when you said hunting lodge, I imagined more of a one-room cabin with a pot-belly stove! This is a bloody manor house!"

"Well, hardly that, but it is a bit more comfortable than your average timbered cabin."

The lodge had a fairly large kitchen and a nice master bedroom with a comfy-looking double bed. There was also an enormous living room, with a fabulous view of the valley they had just climbed up from. There was a big fireplace, and a generous amount of comfortable, if rustic, furniture. To their delight, the walk-in pantry was fully stocked with cans and dried food-stuffs. An indoor bathroom completed the floor-plan of the building.

There was a wood-fired cooking stove, and kerosene lamps in all the rooms, but also a number of electric appliances.

"There's a diesel generator out behind the shed, but I'm too tired to figure out how to start it now. We have cold water from the cistern, but no hot water. You OK with frontier style living until tomorrow?"

"Sure, Kimmie, just give me something hot to eat and I'll be happy!"

Kim returned from the pantry with a choice of canned food. "Beef stew? Hungarian Goulash? Chili con Carne?"

"Stew is fine! Anything other than water to drink?"

"I'll check in the cold room outside!" After a minute she was back, a number of cans and bottles in her arms.

"Beer for you, if you want it! Soda and ginger ale for me!"

"Ah, beer! Gimme, Kimmie, gimme!"

Kim gave her a bottle, deposited the others on the counter, and started poking around with the wood stove to get a fire going.

"Pumpkin, never mind that! My power is nearly all back now! I can just heat the stew in my hands! Look!" She grabbed a can to demonstrate.

==##0##==

It was quite late before they could enjoy their first hot dinner in many days. First, Kim had to light the stove, and then she had to clean the kitchen.

"I still can't believe you'd be so stupid as to heat a can of stew without opening it first!" Kim grumbled over and over.

"Hey, I was just too hungry to think straight! And I still say I could have heated the other cans just fine without explosions and without you having to light the stove!"

"Well, I didn't feel like taking any unnecessary risks! And, as hungry as I was, seeing the stew plaster itself all over the roof and walls was just way too traumatic to take any more chances!"

They were still doing the teasing banter type of relationship, and comfortable with it. The food, and – in Shego's case - a number of bottles of beer, soon made them sleepy as well as tired, and the tension began to leave them. Kim found that the familiar environment let her relax for the first time in several days

After perfunctory ablutions, Kim carried Shego to the big double bed and made ready to lie down herself on the other side.

They had used the kerosene lamps in the kitchen and carried a portable one into the bathroom, but here in the bedroom there was just a candle in a brass candlestick.

The beddings were cool and felt a bit humid, but after two nights in the back of a car, they felt like heaven.

"Tomorrow, Princess, I think we should start looking for a way to get these casts off my legs," Shego said as Kim made ready to blow out the light.

"That soon? Are you sure?"

"No, but I'm going crazy dragging these two lumps of plaster around!"

"That's not a sound basis for an orthopaedic decision," Kim said primly. "And you'd better believe me; my Mum's a doctor!"

"Well, she's not a psychiatrist, as far as I know, and not really trained to tell just _how_ crazy I might be going if we leave them on! Look, the flames are fully back ..."

"... which you demonstrated quite convincingly with the stew ..."

"... fully back, as I said, and so are the rest of my powers! I'm not saying I would be fit as a fiddle, but at least I could get out of the casts and begin to hop around a bit with the crutches!"

"Yeah, we'll see in the morning. There should be tools enough around to be able to get them off you, if that's what you really want! Now, shut up and let me sleep!"

"Yeah, and sweet dreams to you, too, Princess!"

==##0##==

Apart from various visits to the bathroom, they did enjoy a good and long night's sleep. In fact, it was almost ten o'clock in the morning when they both suddenly woke up.

The door to the bedroom burst in, courtesy of a sharp kick, and the double barrels of a large-bore shotgun poked Kim in the stomach through the blankets she was covered in.

"GIT UP OUTA THERE AND SHOW YOUR FACES, YOU THIEVIN' SCUM!"

Kim dazedly stuck her face up from the covers.

"Hi, there, uncle Slim! How ya doin'?" she asked with a yawn.

==##0##==

A/N. A chapter a bit shorter than the others, and with not all that much happening. Well, they **did** just need to get to the cabin, and were quite happy to reach it without further conflicts and near disasters.

Hope you weren't bored.

Anyway, please read and review! I'll be needing help to deal with everything from grammar to geography! Is it plausible that it takes two days to drive from Colorado to Wyoming? Also, I have some trouble with American English idiom and words. I guess "crisps" is British English only, but I get confused ...

And, another thing? Shego seems to have started swearing, and some of the situations have been a bit ... rough? Do you think the rating is OK?


	9. Chapter 9

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN**** AGENDA**

"_It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place."_  
(Sidonie Gabrielle) Colette, 1873 – 1954.

**Chapter nine, which is mostly a conflict of wills **

Kim Possible was a bit shocked.

Not by the rude awakening. She was well used to going from deep sleep to full action mode at the smallest sign of danger, and could by now do it without any traces of panic or disorientation.

It wasn't the fact that her uncle, Slim Possible, had shown up, either, ready to protect his property by any means.

No, it was rather that she hadn't foreseen that he **would **turn up, and so quickly.

In retrospect, it was obvious. Uncle Slim wouldn't be the person she knew if he hadn't installed a number of alarms all around his hunting lodge, to alert him to any trespassers, be it nothing more than a raccoon.

He had of course noticed the intrusion the moment they had entered the house, and had driven all night to confront whoever had broken in.

And Kim really should have expected it.

She guessed her oversight could in part be due to stress, hunger and fatigue, but that didn't really make her any less irritated with herself.

She was in a dangerous situation, and she could ill afford not to be at her sharpest. And she had failed to see something that should have been obvious. What if her uncle had brought the sheriff with him? What if he had just called the police?

I didn't really bode well at all.

Kim Possible was a bit shocked. She was, however, if anything even more determined than before.

==##0##==

Yes, Kim should have expected uncle Slim to show up. That he had brought cousin Joss with him shouldn't have been a surprise, either.

Kim was, however, a bit surprised by how Joss looked. She had evidently gotten over her earlier crush on Ron, and was back to full KP mode, in cargoes, utility belt and black, midriff-baring top. She had also grown a lot in the year since Kim had last seen her, no longer a lanky girl but very obviously a young woman.

Kim was a bit freaked out by this mirror image of her younger self.

"Chill, Cuz!" Joss said, "I'm not into the world-saving gig."

"Well, that's a relief, anyway ..."

"Yeah, the biggest I've saved so far is western Montana and bits of Saskatchewan!"

Kim groaned, while Shego gave a short laugh.

They had all gathered in the kitchen for a late breakfast. Uncle Slim had started the generator and they now had both electricity and hot water.

There were all sorts of packets of mixes in the pantry, and Joss was making pancakes. Kim had made coffee and put some crisp-rolls and marmalade on the table. She had then fetched what was left of their loaf of white bread and put it in the toaster, while heating baked beans in the microwave.

Shego started humming Duran Duran, again, and Joss gave her some strange looks, not getting the joke.

When everything was ready, they began eating in silence. After a while, though, Slim Possible began the discussion that couldn't be avoided.

"So, girls, you got yourselves in some trouble, right?"

"Well, not really our fault, Uncle, but yeah, we're in deep shit!"

"Kimberly Ann! You know I don't approve of that kind of language!"

"Apt description, though, Mr. Possible!" Shego interjected.

"Well, I take it you know what happened, from Dad? So we needed some place to hide and think things through, and this seemed like a good choice. Hope you don't mind?"

"Of course not, Kimmie! Wish you had called me or something, though, and asked me for help."

"Sorry! Didn't want to get you into trouble..."

"You do need some help!" Joss said. "You should call Wade. He would be there for you, I'm sure!"

"Can't," Kim muttered. "I threw away the Kimmunicator."

"You threw it away? Why on earth did you do that?"

Kim looked down at the table when answering. "Well, there's this chip in it, you see, and I didn't want it to be possible for him to trace me. That way, they wouldn't be able to put any pressure on him. He could just, in all truth, say that it couldn't be done, since I dumped the device ..."

"Kimberly, you are taking too much on yourself! You should give your friends the chance to help you, when they want to! You can't do everything on your own!"

Shego cleared her throat.

"... not even with help from your friend. She **is **injured, by the way, have you noticed?"

"Well, I'm not that sure Wade would _want _to help. We sort of had a small argument on the Saturday. And he didn't really think it was a good idea, to go out flying over the power-lines. And I found out he had been helping the GJ to strip Shego here of all her bank accounts, so why shouldn't he just continue to help them?"

"Kim!" Joss exclaimed. "You don't know what you're saying. He'll help, you'll see! And of course he had to help the GJ with the accounts! It was all part of the deal with the amnesty, after all! It had to be done!"

Kim looked up, a bit surprised.

"Yeah," Joss went on, after a while. "So he's been talking to me a lot about that. He really didn't like doing it, but they kind of forced him."

Shego caught one of the the implications of what was being said. "So, you've been talking to Wade a lot, huh? You wouldn't happen to have your own … eh … Jossophone, now, would you?"

Joss blushed a little. "I do, actually. Wade's been helping me a bit with some … stuff? … I've been doing ..."

"Ha, Princess! The Geek-in-a-Box traded you in for a younger model!"

Kim glared at Shego, on the verge of arguing, but Slim Possible forestalled her.

"Actually," he said, "the point is this: Joss here could talk to Wade, on a scrambled and secure connection, and ask if he could and would help you. And I think she should try it; you need all the help you can get!"

"Fine, then," Kim reluctantly agreed. "Go ahead and try!"

==##0##==

They tidied the kitchen and did the dishes before adjourning to the living room to call up Wade.

They sat around the coffee table by the windows, looking out over the valley below. The walls in there were of polished wooden panels, hung with native art and memorabilia. An extremely large mounted trout above the fireplace gave testimony to Uncle Slim's passion for fishing. The room was peaceful and comforting, in odd contrast to the situation they were discussing.

Joss had a slightly smaller communicator than Kim, sleeker and dark green in colour.

"Tasteful design," Shego commented, "don't ya think, Princess?"

It didn't take long before Wade's face appeared on the screen.

"Hi, Joss! What's up?"

"Hi yourself, Wade! No big! It's just that I have someone here that could sorta use some help ..."

"You found Kim? Well done, Joss! I knew I could count on you!"

"Well, it's more like she found us, actually. I didn't even get to start looking when she turned up here, in the Wyoming cabin ..."

Kim listened intently, gaining more and more clues to the relationship between her cousin and her friend.

"Is she there, Joss?" Wade asked. "Can you put her on?"

"I'm here, Wade," Kim said, taking the communication device and letting the built-in camera see her.

"Kim! Am I glad to see you. I was kind of worried!"

"Yeah, trust me, I've been worried, too. It's been kinda tough going. And … Shego being drugged out of her powers, and with both legs broken, didn't make it any easier. But she's better now, she'll heal real quick now her power's back, so we're beginning to think about what to do next."

"So you're still together, then? Good! Well, listen, Kim, firstly: this is a totally secure communication. I've scrambled everything that can be scrambled! And secondly: I really want to help. I've pieced together a lot of what happened, and I really get why you took off! Really, I do! And I wouldn't have believed what they were saying, anyway."

"What, Wade?" Kim was suddenly suspicious. "What did they say?"

The image of Wade's face on the screen was rather small, but his reluctance showed clearly. "Well, the GJ said you and Shego were caught, together, in an attempt to take down the electrical grid as an act of terrorism. During your capture, you were both hurt and taken to hospital for treatment. There … you killed a nurse and a policeman to make your escape, fighting your way out, stealing a car, and... You are both wanted, believed to be armed and dangerous … "

"The bastards!! They can't actually believe that's could've happened! They're lying!! That's not what happened! It's not!" Kim was so angry she seemed close to tears. "It's just a way to get rid of anyone that could be a problem, no matter if they're guilty or not! They didn't even want to listen when we said Shego acted in self defence!"

"Well, I knew it wasn't true! You know your Mum was there, right? She saw some of what happened. And you talked to her a bit, also, before the … business with the nurse. She knows it isn't true. And I do, too! I have been checking all the radio traffic of the Middleton PD, for instance, and I can tell you, things do not add up! Still, care to fill me in?"

Kim gave a brief account of the situation, but trailed off at the end, thinking.

"So, talk to us, technobabble boy!" Shego urged him when Kim seemed to loose track. "We need something to work on, here!"

"Ah...Shego? Yes, of course. It makes much more sense now, I'll have you know! Eh, … I've done some snooping around, you know? Looking for things to support what Kim said to her Mum? "

"Spill!"

"I coming to it! You know, about these black jets? And helicopters? "

"Trust me, I do remember them. All out air strike on the power lines! All because they wanted to kill little old me and capture Dr. D."

"Uh-huh! Well, I checked what I could of the air traffic near by the power lines where you were … supposedly apprehended?"

"Yeah! Please tell me you traced them to their base?"

"No, I'm afraid not! But I definitely got indications that there was some unknown aircraft around. Listen, this is really weird! In this day and age, unmonitored flights over the U.S. shouldn't really be possible! Got me a bit interested, to say the least... "

"Well, so you should be! Definitely not fun, having bombs raining down on you ..."

"No, to be sure. Well, anyway, they flew mostly under the radar, but from time to time, something would show up on the screens of different traffic control towers. ... Anyway, started checking some other scenes where GJ had had operations, lately. Turns out there were a few unexplained radar sighting at some of these, too. The black jets are definitely there! And the GJ knows it; they've been coming up against them before! Well, anyway, while there are no clear tracings, the sightings do show a kind of pattern ..."

"Way to go, Wade!" Joss exclaimed.

"Now, you must understand that I have no **exact **information, here! But my analysis shows a couple of likely … areas … where these unidentified planes could be based ..."

"Yes!"

" … and one of the possible sites is actually up around where you are; in the north of Wyoming!"

It was almost audible, the 'snap' when Kim made up her mind.

"We are so on it! Where's it at? If we can just get some proof of these activities, we can show that we were the target of determined attacks! We'll prove that the nurse was sent to kill us! We'll show it's all one great conspiracy and that Shego's not a murderer!"

"Well, I sure hope so... Anyway I'm sending the coordinates now ..."

Slim Possible leaned over Kim's shoulder. "That's really out in the wilds, that is. Not easy going at all!"

"We'll take the Jeep. It'll be fine! We'll just need help with supplies and stuff!"

"That's not the issue, here, is it, kid? These guys you're talking about? Bad trouble, it seems to me! Really much too dangerous! You cannot be serious about going after them, just the two of you?"

"Three!", Joss exclaimed.

"No, Joss, absolutely not! And look, this is just foolish! **They **are after **you**, wanting to kill you! And you plan to just go hiking out in the wilds, knocking at their door to see if there's anyone home? And 'please come and tell the police that we are innocent and you are the bad guys'? Kim, this doesn't make the least bit of sense!"

"I'll kind of agree, here, Pumpkin! We should be keeping away from them, not go out looking form them! Let Wade keep tracking them! He'll get better data and will be able to present it to someone that can do something about it. The goddam Air Force, for instance."

"Uncle Slim, Shego, shut up! I need to do this! They'll find us, anyway, in the end, if we don't find them first. We've got to take the initiative. And we're not going to storm a secret military installation just by ourselves, we just need to see for ourselves where they are and prove that they are real! Some photos, some coordinates! And Wade can keep tracking and recording anything suspicious from where these guys have appeared before. The more information, the better the case!"

"Kim, this is totally crazy ..."

"Uncle, please listen. Who knows something about fighting villains and evil organisations in this room? Yeah, that's right, **I **do! I know what I'm doing, and it needs to be done! Can't you just help us? 'Cause if you don't, I'll just do it, anyway, and the only difference is that it will be that much more difficult!"

Slim Possible locked eyes with his niece, thinking for a long time. "I need to check with your dad, kid, and … "

"No, you don't! Don't involve him in this, when the GJ will be crawling all over him and Mum to get at me! Decide for yourself! You talked about needing friends to help me. Now, are **you **going to help me?"

Slim sighed heavily. "Kim ..."

"Look, I know what I'm doing! I CAN DO ANYTHING, RIGHT?"

Uncle Slim was a bit shocked by the outburst.

"Hey", Wade said from the communicator, "I think Kim may have a point. Not only these black-clad guys will be after her, but, for whatever reason, the GJ will, too. You can't just sit still and wait, one or the other will come looking before long. So it all comes down to this: Either you get away, so far away neither of them will ever find you. Can be done, perhaps, but not easily, and not in any "nice" place! And you'll be stuck there! Or else – you go on the offensive and try to expose both the Black Jets, and the problems within the GJ."

"Thanks, Wade! Shego?"

Deep sigh. "OK, Princess, if you want to do this, I'm in!"

"OK, Kimberly Ann Possible!", her uncle finally said. "You always were a stubborn one. I'll help you. I'll get you your equipment, and I'll be around if you need something else. But Joss ain't going with you, and that's final! And remember, I still think this is a stupid thing to do!"

"Thanks, everyone! I knew I could trust you!"

==##0##==

The plan soon hit another serious snag, though.

"Look, girls," Slim Possible said, "the Jeep's not gonna cut it! You'd have to do it the old fashioned way and take to the saddle!

"Going out in the bush, sitting on the top of a bloody horse!?!" Shego shouted. "Never, Kimmie, never!!"

"But, Shego, it **is** the most practical way to travel, here! And horses are nice animals, you'll see!"

"They are **NOT** nice! They're evil beasts, just waiting to wipe mankind from the face of the earth! They are worse than Drakken used to be, even!"

"But, Shego ..."

"No! And their legs are to tall, and their teeth are too yellow, and … and ..."

"Shego! You did say you'd go with me! You said so!"

"But that was before there were any horses around!"

"Shego! I promise, it'll be all right!"

"Now, listen!" Slim said. "I said I'd help, and I can get you horses and equipment, but I'm not going to do that if you're not both agreed that this is what you want to do!"

Shego glared at the eldest Possible. "Look, I'm not chickening out, here! Black Jet Guys, so not the problem. Let's go find them, by all means. But – horses!?!"

"You want to take on an unknown paramilitary organisation, but you're afraid of riding a horse, is that it?"

"AFRAID!?! I'm not afraid! I just know when to avoid placing life and limb at the mercy of pure evil!"

Kim placed her right hand on top of Shego's left. "Shego, please! It can't be worse than Warmonga, surely!"

Shego looked at Kim and sighed again. "OK, you win. I'll come. But get me a nice horse with short legs and no teeth, if you have one!"

"Thanks, Shego! I knew you'd come through!"

Joss looked at them with a dreamy smile. "Aw ..."

"What, Mini-Kim, what?"

"Oh, you're just so cute together! I'm so happy for you!"

Kim fell backwards on the couch, laughing, while Shego turned an interesting colour.

"WHAT? What the fuck are you saying, here? Wha ..."

"Oh, don't worry, I don't mind! As long as you are both happy!"

"Pumpkin, what's she on about? She on drugs or something?"

"Joss, dear," her father said, warningly.

Kim regained her breath with some difficulty. "Look, cousin, this isn't a movie or something. We are so not together in the way you seem to think! Trust me, it'd be the last thing ever to happen! We just have common enemies, here, and a professional interest in cooperating to clear ourselves!"

Joss gave Kim a wink. "Oh, I get it! Whatever you say, Kim! Just take your time!"

Shego groaned and covered her face with her hands. Kim burst out laughing again.

==##0##==

They had a late lunch and made their plans. Joss and her father were to go back to the ranch and get a couple of sturdy horses and all the equipment that would be needed for about ten day's travel. Kim and Shego were to stay at the cabin and rest.

They would remove Shego's plaster after another day's rest, using the tools in the shed behind the cabin.

When the Possibles were back with the horses, they would wait just to make sure that Shego was all right and had full use of her legs and her powers, and then they would set of.

They would drive the Cherokee and the truck pulling the horse-box as far as they could, and then Kim and Shego would continue on horseback. Joss would drive the Cherokee back, while Uncle Slim drove the truck.

It seemed like a good plan, at least under the circumstances.

==##0##==

When Kim and Shego went to bed that night, Kim decided to drop the teasing and try for a serious conversation.

"Shego, are you really all right with all this?"

She didn't specify exactly what she meant by 'all this' but, thankfully, Shego seemed to understand.

"Well, Pumpkin," she began slowly, "if it were only me, I wouldn't be doing this. I have no family, no friends, no boy-friend or anything. I would just take my chances, and go disappear somewhere, perhaps in Africa. But it's different for you. You need things fixed so you can go back to your family and your friends. You want to get back to university. I understand that. You have a life, after all! So, OK, you're in this mess mostly because of me, and I'll help you fix it the way you want to try it. I may be a barely reformed villain, but I needn't be a total bastard about it!"

"Thanks, Shego! I'm glad you understand, and I'm very glad for your help. But it's not only for me, is it? You have a life, too, haven't you?"

Shego sighed. "Not so you'd notice, no. But don't let that bother you!"

"Oh, come on, Sheegs! You have family! What about your brothers? You have friends! What about the Seniors? What about Dr. D? What about … me?"

"Princess, make no mistake! I'm not a nice person. I don't do the 'friends' thing very well. And my brothers would be very happy to see me disappear somewhere in Africa! And as for you? Well, Cupcake, don't let your crazy cousin fool you! There ain't nothing there, is there? We have just have been fighting each other for so long, we're kinda used to each other!"

Kim sighed. "Perhaps that's it, Shego, but don't sell yourself short, either. You deserve better than you think!"

"If you say so, Pumpkin, if you say so!"

"Well, I do! Now, sleep tight, and see you in the morning!"

"Yeah, g'night!"

==##0##==

A/N. OK, that was a difficult chapter. Mostly talk. Yadda, yadda, yadda. And I'm trying desperately here to make a basically rather stupid choice on Kim's part look plausible. I'm hoping to establish that the bad things that has impacted on Kimmie's life would make it believable for here to stubbornly go for seeking out the enemy, rather than, more wisely, try to hide and get away.

Does it work?

Please read and review! I need feedback!


	10. Chapter 10

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

"_Trying is the first step to failure!_"  
Homer Simpson

**Chapter ****ten, which brings terrible choices and shifting luck. **

Kim Possible was walking on thin ice.

Not literally, of course. In fact, in real life she was on horseback.

But figuratively, it seemed like a good description of her state of mind.

As long as she was awake and focusing on practical things, the ice held and she was all right. When trying to sleep, though, or zoning out on the back of the horse, she would start thinking about things best left alone, and cracks began to appear in the ice.

If she was taken unawares, the ice would break and she would plunge into the dark embrace of freezing water, clutching at her with the grip of pure terror.

Things that would grab her from below at these times were, for instance, the image of the nurse that had tried to stab her, and what happened to his head when Shego shot him.

Or else, the grimy hands of Mike the mechanic, groping her all over in sweaty anticipation.

Kim had never had these kinds of thoughts before. Oh, she had had her share of narrow escapes, and a good many villains with a variety of mental instabilities had tried to do her harm, yes, even kill her.

This had never stayed in her mind, though. She had always come out all right, and she had always escaped their clutches, and that was that. Just one more challenge met, one more adrenaline rush in the life she had chosen to live.

She had never had nightmares about Drakken, for instance, and Shego had never entered her dream world. Almost never, anyway. The confrontation at the radio tower in connection with the Li'l Diablo scheme sometimes came up in her more vivid dreams. But it had never reduced her to a shivering, frightened wreck, like Mike and the nurse now did.

The only way she had to fight these plunges into sheer panic was to keep busy and focused. Which mostly worked, but not all the time.

Yes, Kim Possible was walking on thin ice.

==##0##==

Kim Possible was riding a horse. The testimony of her rear end made it easy to remember that she had been doing this for four days straight, now.

She was used to horses from her visits to the Possible ranch in Montana, and she was a fairly good rider. She had, however, never gone riding for such long periods of time before, and she wasn't sure she appreciated the experience now, but she was doing all right.

The real surprise, though, was that Shego was also doing fine.

Uncle Slim had gotten her a well-natured horse, but it did have teeth and the legs were not all that short.

Shego had approached it the way Mr. Barkin used to approach a group of students who had failed to turn in their homework in time. After a few suspicious green flashes, however, Shego had established just who was in charge.

And now, she sat the horse in a surprisingly competent way, even if it was clear she wasn't anywhere near as good a rider as Uncle Slim and Cousin Joss. And neither, of course, was Kim.

"What, Pumpkin?" Shego had asked when Kim saw her sit up the first time. "I never said that I couldn't ride! Just that horses are evil!"

It was a good thing that she was OK with the horses as their mode of transport, though. Her healing powers, once they returned, were totally astounding. The fact that she was up and walking just a little more than a week after the complicated fractures she had suffered was nothing short of miraculous. She couldn't be said to be fully recovered, though, and hiking day after day on foot in rugged terrain would not have been a good option.

So they rode the horses, suffering horribly in parts of anatomy best not mentioned in polite conversation.

==##0##==

They had taken the cars as far as they had been able, and the horses had carried them a fair bit further into a wilderness almost totally untouched by human activities.

The landscape was totally breathtaking, alternating between rocky canyons, dense pine forests, and broad open valleys between majestic mountain ranges.

It was the kind of landscape you could often see in wildlife cable documentaries, but no matter how many hours you spent before a TV screen could even begin to prepare you for the experience of being right out in the middle of untouched wilderness.

It would have been an exciting journey in itself, if they hadn't been on such a desperate mission.

It was now early evening on their fourth day of riding.

They came upon a nice spot for camping, right by a small stream, and decided to stop for the day. Shego slipped carefully from the saddle and sank down on the soft moss by a fallen log. Kim went to take care of the pack horse Uncle Slim had provided, and started unloading their gear.

After a while, Shego started collecting what they would need for their evening meal. She removed the saddles from both the horses, so that they would have something to sit on, but didn't start preparing the food.

Instead, she started fiddling with the dark green spare Kimmunicator Joss had lent them.

"Still nothing," she said after a while. "No radio traffic, no radio beacons, no sign of any electromagnetic signals at all. You know we'll have to turn back, if we don't find anything soon."

"Yeah, not just yet, though. Come on, we are just now getting close to the coordinates Wade gave us, so we wouldn't really have been likely to find anything before now, anyway!"

"Yeah, maybe! Still, don't know what you really expect to find. Secret air base, OK. But there won't be a flock of fighters circling about like jackdaws settling in for the night, you know. They could be flying no more than one mission every other week, and, if so, we would have to be really lucky to happen along just when they're about to land."

"Oh, don't be so gloomy! Sometimes you just have to create your own luck!"

"Maybe so. But almost the entire rest of the world seems fairly intent on serving us up with _bad_ luck, so we'll have to be pretty damn creative, won't we?"

"Hey, you know I can do a..."

"I know, I know, you can do anything! No need to go on and on about it, though!!"

There were still a few hours of daylight left, but they were both pretty tired, and didn't feel they could press on any further. On the other hand, they were in no hurry to eat and get to sleep immediately. Instead, Shego plasma-brewed some coffee, and they just took it easy in silence, glad to be down from the horses.

Suddenly, Shego surprised Kim thoroughly with a subject she brought up.

"You know, Princess, your cousin Joss is uncannily like yourself, as you were when I first came upon you. So bright, so basically happy and so innocent it's almost creepy!"

"What!?"

"Yeah, I can understand your nerd liking her! It's like a second chance for him!"

"Wait a minute, now! You mean I'm not bright and happy any more? That I'm a failure, or something?"

"No, Kimmie, I don't mean that. I do mean, though, that you are growing up fast. You are encountering a lot of the really nasty things in life, and you're facing situations and choices that are very different from thwarting the insane plots of a Drakken or a Dementor. It's bound to be changing you. Welcome to the shitty world of adulthood, Princess! And let me tell you, it's not all fun and games any more."

"Don't I know it! Note face – not amused!"

"Duly noted! And so, your Boy Wonder found a new 'you', who was just starting up doing the same kind of exciting stuff you were doing a few years ago. Can you blame him for helping her? Can you blame him for having a second go?"

Kim muttered something not really meant to be heard.

"Yeah, and also, you know, as Joss is younger than you, and the Geek is couple of years older, it might lead to a more ... interesting ... relationship, if you take my meaning!"

"WHAT?" Kim shouted. "Are you saying that Wade and Joss are ... involved? That they are seeing each other? How the hell would you now anything about that?"

"Oh, to be sure, I don't know anything. I just see with my eyes and hear with my ears. They obviously have quite a lot of contact, no?. Joss obviously thinks highly of him, and the Nerdlinger obviously likes her. What's the big mystery? Strong, competent, good looking girl like that? He would have to be a monk not to be attracted!"

"Stop and rewind! Are you by this implying Wade was having a crush on _me_ when he was helping me with the missions? That this was the reason he ran my web-site and gave me tech support? And that he's going for Joss on some sort of rebound?"

"Oh, come on, Pumpkin! Of course he had a crush on you! Who wouldn't have? The buffoon, most of the guys and half of the girls in your school must have had the hots for you at one time or another! And the rat!"

"Shego!" Kim whined. "Shut up! Wade was just a kid, for Christ's sake! He was ten, for crying out loud! You can't be serious!"

Shego laughed and shook her head disbelievingly. "Oh, Kimmie! Of course he must have dreamed about you! So, he was ten? And he never left his room? That's no obstacle for a dreamland romance! And now? He's what? 14? 15? And Joss is 17? Come on, Kimmie! What do **you** think? "

"I think I'm gonna have a serious conversation with young Mr. Load them moment I'm back," Kim muttered.

"Oh, lighten up! Leave that to Uncle Slim and let them have their fun!"

"Ghaa!" Something else occurred to her, however. "Say, do you think Joss was in Middleton on the Saturday? Was it _her_ at the movies with Wade when the power cut hit? When I called him and we ... sort of ... argued?"

"Now, how would I know that? You'll have to ask her yourself. 'Though if you do, she'll probably want to hear all about our secret romance and our hot nights together!"

"Shego, our nights together are no hotter than a couple of bloody penguins standing around in a blizzard! The only thing hot is if **you **dream about Drakken and accidentally light your hands!"

"Yeah?" Shego said, wiggling her eyebrows to like Groucho Marx delivering a punch-line. "Would she believe that?"

Kim took a big breath, but in the end could think of nothing intelligible to say. "Faugh!"

They lapsed into silence. Kim was used to the unending baiting and banter, and the snarkiness. She wasn't really well prepared for Shego's sudden penchant for discussing relationships. Much more than the previously so common barbs about her dating Ron, it made her uneasy.

She hadn't been prepared for the sudden glimpses of a serious Shego, either. She had always though Shego led a jet-set life when not supporting the latest Drakken disaster. Casinos, clubs and discos. Biarritz, Saint Tropez and the Caribbean. Shopping in Paris or Rome. Relaxing in exclusive spas. That was how she had been imagining Shego living her life. But after that evening in the cabin, were she now to believe that Shego led a lonely, boring life, mostly sitting around one lair or the other, going more and more exasperated from exposure to Drakken silliness?

It bothered her a bit. She had no problem beating the crap out of any villain she met, or putting them behind bars for longish periods of time, but for some stupid reason it sort of spoiled the fun to think that Shego may have been a lonely and basically unhappy person whenever they fought. Well, that could explain some of the bitchiness, anyway, she imagined.

==##0##==

Her train of thought was suddenly derailed.

"Hush! Shego? Do you hear that?"

They were both instantly still, straining their hearing for what had caught Kim's attention.

After a while, the low snarling of a small propeller airplane spread out over the landscape.

"It's coming from behind that ridge!" Kim said, grabbing a pair of binoculars, the camera and the green Kimmunicator. "Come on!"

She started running up the steep incline behind them, with Shego following more slowly.

Cresting the rise, they found no need for the binoculars. There, flying low along the valley on the other side of the ridge, was a small red biplane. It looked almost like Mr. Barnstormer's crop-duster, Kim thought.

"Hey, it's red! Not black! Do you think it's our guys? Or someone else?"

"Well, if it's not our Black Jets, and it's flying up to where we think they may have their base, I bet it's gonna flush them out anyway! Get ready with the camera, Shego!"

"Aw, it's heading away! I'm not gonna have time to get a snap of it!"

But the airplane didn't continue away from them. About half a mile further on it started gaining some altitude, and made a wide turn over the continuation of the ridge Kim and Shego had climbed. Then it approached again, but this time down the narrower valley that they had been riding along earlier.

"SHIT! The horses! The camp! They're gonna spot us!"

Kim started down the hill at breakneck speed, Shego following as best she could.

If it was the bad guys, just with a new colour scheme, they were going to be found out in just a few moments. They would be spotted without any chance at all to find and document any secret installations. They would have found nothing but trouble. A total disaster, mission-wise. It couldn't be allowed to happen!

But, while Kim Possible could do a lot of things, she could, in all honesty, not out-run an aeroplane. The red biplane flew low over the valley, spooking the horses, and passed their campsite just before Kim almost fell down the hill and arrived at the scene.

The plane pulled sharply up, and started a turn. The green Kimmunicator Shego was carrying in her hand started blinking and beeping, immediately intercepting some kind of radio traffic.

"Damn it all to hell!" Kim shouted. "Back again, Shego! Hide!"

But there was no apparent way to hide from an airplane by their camp. Trees and higher vegetation grew mostly further down in the valley, along the stream, and only bushes and grasses covered the rocky hillside on the higher ground were they had unloaded their gear.

"Get down, Kimmie! It's coming back!"

The plane now flew at right angles to the valley, straight for their camp, and made a pass just a few meters over the ridge.

"Princess, it's no use! They've seen us. Let's just walk back to camp and look innocent!"

They did just that, apprehensively, while the plane came back for another pass. This time, something was dropped just as it flew past the campsite.

Kim and Shego froze. It turned out not to be a bomb, though. It was just a round metallic object, somewhat like a bowling ball in size, and when it stopped bouncing along the ground it started giving then a message.

"YOU ARE TRESPASSING ON GOVERNMENT PROPERTY!" a loudspeaker in the sphere announced. "PLEASE JUST SIT DOWN AND WAIT. YOU WILL BE PICKED UP AND ESCORTED OUT OF THE AREA."

"So, Princess, they're pretending they are the government, huh? What do we do?"

The plane started circling above them. Kim kicked the ground in frustration.

"OK, if it _is_ the Black Jet Guys, and they do pick us up and recognise us, then it's goodbye! We've got to get away from that plane. If we run down into the trees, we'll at least have some cover!"

"Fine. Lead the way!"

They ran down the slope at a moment the plane was headed away from them, and threw themselves into cover under the trees by the stream.

"So far so good! What now?"

"Downstream! There'll be more trees that way, as the valley widens! Come on!"

As the plane came back, the loudspeaker in the metal sphere started giving instructions again. "RETURN TO THE CAMPSITE IMMEDIATELY! YOU WILL BE ESCORTED OUT OF THE AREA!"

"Damn, damn, damn! We must get away from that carrion-bird up there, but we can't leave without at least some of the food and equipment! Stay here and I'll make a dash for it!"

"Be careful, Kimmie! It's a double-seater and there's an observer as well as the pilot! They'll spot you the moment you break cover! And they might have other things to drop on you!"

"I'll just have to be quick, then, won't I?"

But the plane had now settled into doing smallish circles up above, and wasn't making isolated passes over the camp any more. There was no way to avoid being seen, so Kim just dashed out into the open when she had caught her breath, relying on her speed.

The loudspeaker started speaking at once, as the plane turned wider to make an approach along the valley. "STAND STILL AND WAIT! STAND STILL, OR WE'LL OPEN FIRE!"

Kim, of course, didn't, and the plane made good on the threat.

It wasn't cannon fire and missiles like at the power lines, but good old-fashioned machine gun fire. The biplane, however, could maintain a much lower airspeed than the black jet fighters, and the pilot had much better possibility of directing his fire.

Kim threw herself down behind a small boulder as a line of bullet impacts approached and then passed beyond her position.

"Kimmie!"

The plane made a turn upstream. Shego had visions of "North by Northwest" and the scene where a man in a biplane tried to kill Cary Grant. Here, however, there was no cornfield to hide in, and no road where any trucks could be flagged down.

Kim had snatched a saddle bag while the plane made its turn, and was now running madly back towards the cover of the same boulder as before. The plane made its approach downstream, firing its machine guns again. It looked like it would be a close race.

"To hell with this!" Shego roared, stepping out from under the trees and letting lose a bolt of plasma.

The plane was flying at not more than 20 metres above the ground, and still gently descending. It was making a very slow pass to enable the pilot to aim his guns. Consequently, the plane was also an easy target for fire from the ground, and Shego had no trouble directing her plasma straight at her chosen target, the engine. There was no explosion but a large cloud of oily smoke instantly burst from the cowlings at the front of the plane.

Incongruously, the communication sphere the plane had dropped earlier now relayed the frantic conversation between the pilot and the observer. "_Goddam it! What happened?" "They have a bazooka or something!" "Climb, dam' you! We gotta bail!" "No, I'll set her down over their, on the meadow!" "Climb, I said!" "---" _

The sound died away into white noise as the aircraft continued down the valley. It was evidently an extremely short range transmission device, like a cheap walkie-talkie.

Kim stood up, looking at Shego

"Grab the bag, Kimmie! We have to get out of here before any back-up arrives!!"

The pilot had finally decided to try to gain enough height for a safe parachute jump. They could see the airplane climbing steeply, almost straight up, further down the valley. Thick, black smoke belched from the obviously struggling engine. Only a couple of hundred metres up, though, the engine suddenly stopped, and the plane started dropping back to earth, turning over backwards, in sudden silence. Two figures could be seen leaving the craft, and the chutes opened quickly. Maybe they could land safely without too much injury.

The plane hit the ground in a ball of burning fuel, high up on the ridge. It was not an explosion, more of a conflagration, but the fire was so intense that they could hear the flames even at their distance to the place of impact. It burned like a beacon, releasing a pillar of smoke that would be visible for a long distance.

"Holy shit! Did I do that?"

Kim ran up to Shego. "Yeah, I'm officially impressed. Come on, now. We've got to get under cover!"

They started running along the stream, hoping fervently that the sparse vegetation would soon give way to an area with more continuous tree cover.

They hadn't been running many minutes, though, before another sound broke the silence. A helicopter. The plane had obviously radioed their observations back to base. The short response time showed that the base must be quite near.

"Back in black, I see!" Shego commented, looking at the approaching machine while trying to regain her breath.

It was not the same type of gunship that had buried them in the rockslide by the power lines, but a smaller helicopter. As Shego had remarked, though, it was black, without any markings except a big figure '3' on the underside of the body.

It came in low, the downdraft from the rotor tearing through the trees that Kim and Shego were hiding under. This time, there was no spherical speaker dropped, but a loudspeaker mounted directly on the helicopter crackled to life.

"COME ON OUT OF THERE!" a voice commanded. "WE'VE GOT INFRARED, AND WE CAN SEE YOU PERFECTLY!"

"They're bluffing?" Kim said hopefully. "Let's head back upstream!"

But their movement was evidently spotted.

"DON'T TRY TO ESCAPE! JUST COME ON OUT WITH YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEADS. DON'T THINK WE'LL HESITATE TO TAKE YOU OUT, AFTER WHAT YOU DID TO OUR RECONNAISSANCE!"

There were missiles or rockets of some sort mounted on outriggers on both sides of the helicopter body. There was also some kind of cannon mounted centrally, under the fuselage. This became evident as a warning shot was fired, hitting the ground just a upstream of where Kim and Shego were hiding. The riverbed erupted in a cloud of pebbles and water.

"This isn't going to work, Kimmie! What's your call?"

==##0##==

Kim Possible felt totally numb. The ice had broken, and she was now emotionally in the freezing waters of total despondency. Her plan had failed, and not in any recoverable way. All she had accomplished was what Uncle Slim had warned her about. She had delivered herself and Shego right at the doorstep of their enemies. They could stay where they were, and be blown to bits and pieces by military grade firepower. Or they could put their hands on their heads, and just walk out into captivity, or worse.

Shego had been right, earlier. She certainly was now facing situations that were way harder than any she had encountered in all the high school years of missions. There was a choice of some sort, but all the alternatives were so awful that she couldn't bear thinking about it.

Well, if they gave up, there was always the chance that they would get to see the base. With luck, they might be able to escape later, with all the information they needed. It was a slim chance, though.

"Shego ... I'm really, really sorry ..." she said, tears of frustration forming in the corner of her eyes.

"Don't worry, Princess. It was a long shot to start with, but we tried, anyway!" Her features molded themselves into a ferocious scowl. "And we are not done here yet, after all!"

And with that, they put their hands on their heads and stepped out from the trees.

==##0##==

"So, Princess, when they land that windmill, they won't be able to aim the rockets or the cannon no more. It will only be small arms fire. We can dodge that, right?"

Kim nodded, thinking.

"OK, we split left and right. I take out any guns I see, and you go for the pilot and the crew. OK?"

Yes! That way, they would get away, at least. Taking a black unregistered helicopter right from the clandestine organisation! They would make it, after all!

The plan was simple, and the two women so used to fighting together, or rather with each other, that the whole thing should go without a hitch!

The helicopter landed, and two black clad crewmembers got out of the big doors in the back, one on each side. They spread far out, carrying some kind of high velocity automatics in their arms. A third crew member, all in black like the others, but with round badges at breast and shoulders, also stepped down from the cabin, but stayed close to the chopper. He held a pistol in his right hand. His flight helmet was connected with a cable to a panel in the helicopter, and when he flipped a switch inside, his amplified voice came loud and clear from the loudspeakers.

"HANDS ON HEAD! APPROACH SLOWLY! NO SUDDEN GESTURES!"

In an instant, Shego went from hands on head to firing a bolt of plasma from each hand, half melting the automatics of the two crewmen. Moments after, the handgun the officer using the loudspeaker held went flying.

Kim burst into action, running and jumping for the officer. Before the handgun had landed on the ground, the man was out cold after a swift kick to the chin.

This was how it should be! Kim relished fighting visible opponents, settling things quickly with hand to hand martial arts. Shego had given her at way up out of the freezing terror of the figurative waters, and Kim's indecision and dread had vanished completely. This was what she did best, this was the reward for doing the whole hero thing, a good fight where her skills made all the difference!

Kim continued into the cockpit, stopping the pilot and the co-pilot from drawing weapons or making radio contact. They soon landed on the ground, outside, and in no condition to put up any further resistance.

Shego went for the flanking guard that was nearest to her, and soon took him out. The other crew member started running for the helicopter, but hesitated when both Kim and Shego fixed him with a steady gaze. Unarmed and bewildered, he raised his hands, and waited.

Perhaps the crew of the biplane had radioed the information that they had been shot down with a bazooka or something similar. Seeing two unarmed women, they helicopter crew had obviously not suspected what Shego could do with her bare hands. She clearly didn't have a bazooka hidden in her hair, and so should have been powerless to resist capture.

Now, the black-clad men knew better. The man who had surrendered was made to carry his comrades to a spot some thirty metres away from the helicopter. The officer with the loudspeaker quickly regained consciousness, and helped.

Shego jumped in and sat down at the controls. She soon had the rotor spinning at take-off speed. Kim stood in the open door by the co-pilot's seat, observing their defeated opponents sharply. She had put the officers flight helmet on, and addressed them using the loudspeaker.

"JUST CONTINUE DOING NOTHING UNTIL WE ARE AWAY, AND NOTHING BAD WILL HAPPEN. WE WILL SEE OURSELVES OUT FROM THE AREA, PLEASE AND THANK YOU!"

As Shego tilted the rotor blades for lift-off, and the helicopter rose from the ground, Kim sat down and closed the door. She was triumphant over quick reversal of their fortunes, and the prospects of getting away.

At that moment, however, the officer of the defeated crew pressed a switch on a remote control in his pocket. Cartridges under the seats of the helicopter instantly exploded. The cockpit was filled with gas in a fraction of a second, and the effects immediate.

Kim and Shego were unconscious before the helicopter went out of control and crashed nose first into the ground from which it had just taken off.

==##0##==

A/N. Oh, shit. More text, more action, less talk, but things are going really pear-shaped. However will they get out of this mess?

Please read and review! I'll still be needing help to deal with everything from grammar to geography! Does Wyoming really look anything like this?


	11. Chapter 11

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN**** AGENDA**

"_I came, I saw, and I couldn't believe my own eyes!"_  
Julius Caesar, according to the adventures of Asterix the Gaul by Goscinny and Uderzo.

**Chapter eleven, ****revealing the hidden agenda and introducing a former ally. **

Kim Possible was alive.

At least she thought she was.

She couldn't see anything to tell her where she was, though. Either it was completely and utterly dark, or there was nothing at all to be seen. She also couldn't hear anything helpful. Perhaps a soft hum, like from a ventilation system. Or perhaps that was the sound of her own blood circulation, just the static noises of being alive.

Which brought her back to the conclusion that she was, indeed, among the living. That, and the fact that she was thinking. _Cogito, Ergo Sum_, as they had talked about in philosophy class. She didn't remember who said that, but she doubted he had needed it to make sense of a mess as big as the one she probably was in. Anyway, she was clearly doing the _cogito _stuff, so probably she was _summing _the _ergo_, too.

She remembered running towards a black helicopter. She remembered getting in, and Shego preparing for lift-off. And then, nothing.

Had they crashed? Was she trapped in a wreck, somewhere? In the middle of the night, perhaps?

Well, in contrast to not getting any input from sight and hearing, she had no trouble experiencing pain. A lot of it. Perhaps that was it, then. They had crashed, and she really needed to get out.

She didn't seem to be able to move, at all, though.

Well, where there's life, there's hope. Or was it time to give up?

==##0##==

A blinding light suddenly stabbed her in the eyes. She averted her head, waiting for her eyes to adjust. There were also an increased level of sound, as if some large system was powering up.

After a minute or two, she was able to squint her eyes and take stock of the situation.

She was definitely not in the wreck of the helicopter. Instead, she was in large, sparsely furnished room. Floodlights like in a theatre illuminated her, and someone beside her – Shego? There was no audience in front of them, however, and they were not on stage. Instead, an ordinary office desk and a chair was placed a few metres before them, partly in the shadows under the ceiling-mounted spotlights.

Kim Possible was sitting in a hard backed chair. A surprising amount of constraints held her in place. Wrists, ankles, elbows, knees, waist and neck; unyielding metal bands locked her in uncomfortable immobility.

She could move her head a bit, however, and could see that it was, indeed, Shego beside her, similarly constrained. In addition to the straps, though, Shego's legs and arms were encased in some shining metallic machinery. It looked as if she had suddenly turned halfway into a robot. The extra constraints were connected to some sort of interface on the wall on Shego's side of the room, and there was a stand with large glass container by her left shoulder.

Shego stirred and her head rose slowly, reacting to the light and the sound. She seemed dazed, though, and gave no immediate signs of recognising Kim.

OK, not still in the wreck. If they had indeed crashed, they must have been captured. They were probably now inside the very same secret base they had tried to find.

==##0##==

"Shego", Kim said some time later. "I'm very sorry to have put you in this predicament. It's all my fault."

"Oh, don't worry, Kimmie!" Shego answered in a hoarse whisper. "I kind of expected something like this to happen."

"You did? ... Why did you come with me, then?"

"That's a good question, Princess", Shego began. After a while, though, it became evident that she wasn't going to continue.

"So ... is there a good answer?" Kim prodded.

"No, just bad ones!" Shego sighed. "Look, you got me away from the hospital. You needn't have done that. So I owed you one."

"So I get you out of the frying pan , and you walk back into the fire?"

"Yeah, smart, huh? Well, there's also something else. … You know that I, too, used to be a teen-age hero, together with my awful brothers? I bet you don't know why I left, though. Well, I won't tell you that story, but I can assure you some really bad things happened there at the end. Things that remind me of what's happening to you, just now. You may not believe me, but I actually know a bit of what you are currently facing... I actually felt you could do with some support."

Kim digested this in silence.

"Well, I'm still sorry I got you into this mess. I _did_ talk you into coming!"

"Yeah, and I always do what you tell me, right?"

==##0##==

As her eyes adjusted, Kim could see that there was a large glass window on the wall behind the desk in front of them. It looked a bit like they were in a recording studio with an adjacent control room full of equipment and mixing tables. Kim didn't feel like singing something, though. Besides, the room behind the glass pane seemed empty.

A door in the wall beside the observation window suddenly opened, however, and a man entered.

He went to stand behind the desk, fixing the captives with a steady gaze. He was dressed in a black uniform, with more badges and insignia on it than the man in the chopper. Some of the badges quite clearly displayed the Global Justice logo. Equally obvious, the man was also someone Kim recognised.

"Agent Du?" she croaked hoarsely. "Will?"

"Commander Du, actually, Ms Possible. Yes. Commander of Covert Operations, Global Justice. The new, much improved Global Justice. Yes. To be sure!"

"What … is going on? Why are we here? And what do you want?"

"Ah. Questions, yes? Well, I might answer a few. Why are you here? Because you are stupid! Yes. Stupid. You have put yourself between Global Justice and the objects of its operations. So stupid! What do I want? Well, you must be removed, of course. Removed from being a hindrance to my work. Put to use, perhaps. Or just removed."

Kim shivered. This was not the way Will Du used to talk. It was far from the soft-spoken but rigid subordinate of Dr. Director that Kim remembered.

"I … don't understand ..."

"Oh, come on. Naïve, perhaps. Irritating, yes. Stupid? Hardly! What is so difficult to understand?"

"We were tracking the black painted jet fighters ..."

"And you found the GJ. Which means?"

"... that they are connected? "

"Yes! Give the girl a teddy bear! Of course we are!"

"But … why?"

"You are expecting the monologue, yes? The rant of every loony villain you have ever fought? Yes. Why not?"

Will Du started walking back and forth behind the desk.

"So, can you imagine that there may be worse things out there than a nutcase in a kilt that wants to plant grass all over the world, yes? That there are more serious threats to the order of society than the comic book baddies you usually play with? Things that undermine the very foundations of western civilisation?

He paused and gave them a contemptous look. "So, why would you be surprised if there is a need for a more … decisive … agency than the GJ of that bungling old fool, Dr. Director?"

Hands on his back, he resumed his pacing, taking a new approach in his explanation. "How many times do you think the police or the security services _k__now_ someone is a felon? A thief? A terrorist? But he walks, due to lack of evidence or a sneaky lawyer? Well, _we_ don't care! If someone is a threat, the GJ takes them out! If we believe someone may _become_ a threat, we take them out! Even if we are just not sure that someone will _not_ be a liability, we take them out! And the world is a better place!"

He leaned forward, both hands on the desk, and started lecturing. "Do you know your history? Do you have any education at all? Do you remember Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury? Troublesome man. Caused a lot of problems for King Henry II of England, yes? Archbishop. Couldn't be touched. Excommunicated the King, no less! King Henry was understandably pissed, but he couldn't move against a clergyman. He made his feelings known, though. 'Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest', he raged!"

"And four of his most faithful knights did him that service! They travelled to Canterbury in secrecy, and slew the traitor! No order from the King, you see, but still what needed to be done!"

"We, the covert operations of the GJ, we are those knights! We do what needs to be done, without having to be told! We smooth the way for the government, without the presidents and ministers of today having to sully their hands with the sordid details! We are the loyal knights!"

Shego sat up straight. "I seem to remember that story in a slightly different way," she said. "As I recall it, the murder of the Archbishop caused no end of trouble, and brought the wrath of the Pope down on Henry!"

"Oh, a scholar, are we? Yes? Believing the cute little fairy tales your school teacher told you? The point is, Beckett was a traitor! He had to be removed. He was removed. World a better place! End of story! Yes?"

"So ..." Shego speculated, "I need to be removed because I'm like a saint and a bishop? Flattered, I'm sure, but ..."

"Oh, funny girl! A saint? You're a minor irritation, is all. Yes. But why suffer even that, unnecessarily? If you have a grain of sand in your shoe, you remove it. Otherwise you get chafed feet!"

Will Du turned his attention to Kim. "And you, little Ms Hero! You are an unpredictable factor! The joker in the deck! A loose cannon! Much better without the likes of you!"

"So what? 'Off with her head', is that it? And Drakken, too? Does he also have to die?"

"Drakken? Oh, he is mostly harmless and completely deranged. Yes? But useful! We can't tolerate him at large, but we have use for his inventions! And we've got him now! As long as he cooperates, he can live!"

"So, … the Black Jet Ops of the GJ went as far as to shut down the grid of Montana to flush him out, and when somebody noticed, they had to be removed? The official GJ steps in and cleans up?"

"Yes! What did I say? Not stupid! Success! We have Drakken, and we need to get rid of you! Simple. Yes?"

"But, you're a government organisation, right? How can you get away with this? What about … accountability?"

"Oh, please! Who cares, as long as we deliver? Yes! Four faithful knights, remember?"

"Makes sense, I guess," Shego said. "Explains some of the things that have bothered me. Like why that twerp of a lieutenant was so unwilling to believe we were attacked. He _knew_ we were, but also that it couldn't be admitted, right? And when the nurse couldn't take us out, he knew that he had to step in a finish it!"

"I _am_ a bit surprised you didn't figure it out for yourselves. Yes. But know you know!"

"So, that's it? The end of the road?"

"Maybe. Depends. We can always find use for special talent."

"You expect us to do a Drakken? To work for you?"

"Yes. The deal is simple. Kim Possible. If you work for us, you live. As long as you obey all instructions, you stay alive. Stop being useful, and you're dead. Simple. Yes?"

Kim looked at the former subordinate of the highly moral Dr. Director. Will Du, who had always done everything by the book. "I don't believe you!"

"Oh, it's true all right!

"Well, listen to this: I will _not _be your assassin!"

Will Du shook his head slowly. "Dear little Miss Possible! Just take a moment and think about it! I hope you realise that you _will_ be our operative, or you will not be anything at all. So you had better say yes. Yes?"

"And make no mistake. You will not be able to accept the deal, hoping to fool us , or even escape! You see, we have an easy way to insure your cooperation."

He stood up, reached into his pocket, and held up a small object between his thumb and index finger.

"This will be surgically implanted somewhere in your body. At a remote signal, it will release a pellet of highly efficient poison. So. If you do something we don't like? Go somewhere we think you shouldn't? Or even if we think you're no longer doing your best? We just press the button. Yes? Instant termination."

"And you think that would make me more inclined to accept your deal?" Kim shrieked. "Never, you hear! Never!"

Will Du shrugged. "Like I said, think about it! Now, miss McGowan?"

Shego blinked at the name.

"Oh, come on! _'Shego'_? Didn't you think we would know your real name?"

"Doesn't matter, Mr. Dip-Stick! I know your real name well enough!"

Commander Du slapped his hand hard on the desk.

"Less lip from you! Yes? Now, believe it or not, we have a use even for you!"

"And you actually believe that would work? Well, think again, I don't do 'fetch', and I don't do 'sit'! I may be a thief, but I will not kill, and I will not obey a turd like you!"

"Ah, but you might do 'play dead'! Yes? Don't worry, that kind of deal is not for you! No, you may be more useful as a ... demonstration!"

Will Du walked over to Shego, and pointed to the contraption with the glass container at her shoulder. "You see, we suspect little Miss Possible here might not take us seriously enough. You will help show her that we will not hesitate do do what's needed. You will show her that if we have no use for you, you die!"

Commander Du removed what looked like a TV remote from another pocket. "The glass tube here contains the same poison as the device that would be implanted in Miss Possible. It's in solution instead of in pellet form, because it's quicker and easier to administer from the outside. I press this, a needle shoots out, you die! Yes? Possible is convinced"

"YOU FUCKING BASTARD! Do you think killing Shego will make me do as you want? NEVER!!"

"Really?"

Kim hung her head and and hesitated. "Let her go, instead!" she finally said. "Let her go, and I will do what you want!"

Will Du laughed, a slightly deranged, evil laugh that would have scared the pants of Dr. Drakken. "Oh, dear! You think you can bargain with me? Yes? Not a chance! Miss McGowan needs to be removed! And I have one last use for her, to demonstrate to you what happens to anyone who does not meet my approval!"

"YOU FILTHY COWARD! YOU BASTARD! I piss on you and your insane organisation! I will never ..."

"Princess, don't bother! He's made up his mind. And here I am, at his mercy, my legs and feet trapped!"

"Why, so you are! The same technology that is used in experimental fusion reactors. Designed to contain plasma as hot as the sun! Yes! Every spark from your hands or feet will just be absorbed and fed as electricity to our back-up batteries!"

The room was silent except for a low hum of electrical machinery. The spotlights in the roof bathed the prisoners in merciless light, heating the room to an uncomfortable temperature. Will Du sat down on top of the desk before them, the remote in his hand. Tears gathered in the corners of Kim's eyes.

"So, go ahead, then! I will never do your dirty work for you! If that means you kill me, and Shego, it's one more crime on your own head!"

"Hold it right there, Pumpkin!" Shego glared at Commander Du with a truly frightening scowl on her face. Her eyes almost glowed with hatred. "There is one thing wrong with your reasoning, Mr. Weird Dude!"

Almost glowed? No, there really was an eerie green incandescence in her eyes.

"So, you know my name, do you?" she continued. "Big deal. There are clearly more important things about me that you _don't _know. For instance, you seem to think that I can only generate plasma with my hands? '_Yes_'?"

A small green light, like a miniature star, appeared a hand-span in front of Shego's face, growing steadily in size and intensity.

"Your fancy gadgets might work, but I'll let you in on a secret! It doesn't matter! Your ignorance and pride have brought you … to … your … end!"

Will Du stood up, suddenly nervous. His mouth opened, and he started raising the remote in his hand, as if it were a gun.

He never had a chance, though.

The green light in front of Shego's face suddenly made a circuit of her head, like a miniature planet on speed. It came up behind the tube of poison, shattering it like a bullet from a gun, and spraying Will Du with glass shards and liquid. His face and hands were suddenly criss-crossed with bleeding cuts.

"So, oh loyal knight, what did the Pope think of your evil deed? Will you be absolved of sin? How strong was the solution? Will it be all right, do you think? Or will it be enough to kill you?"

Will stared at her in horror Then he rounded the desk, reaching into a drawer, perhaps for a gun, maybe for the switch of an alarm.

It was all in vain, though. The solution was obviously very concentrated, and the poison very fast to take effect.

Had it been a film, he would have staggered around dramatically, perhaps uttering some last, poignant words. He would have dropped slowly to the ground, clutching desperately at the desk for support.

Now, it wasn't a film, and Commander Will Du just fell over. It wasn't more dramatic than someone missing a step on the staircase.

Kim, however, stared slack-yawed at the desk for almost a minute after Will Du had disappeared behind it. Then she looked at Shego.

"That's the second time you save me from someone who tried to kill me!"

"'No big', Princess! Isn't that what you always say?" With that, another ball of green light formed in front of Shego, before slamming down on the metal casing trapping her right arm.

"Now, let's do what we came for, and take these fuckers down!"

==##0##==

A/N. An important part of the story, explaining some of the set-up, and leading to a show-down!

Also going to be kind of important for the future relations between Kim and Shego.

And giving you part of Shego's real name.

Tried giving Will Du a seriously irritating way of speaking, hinting at some degree of obsession, or even madness. Did it work? Or did it just piss you off?

Please read and review!


	12. Chapter 12

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

"_The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."  
_Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor, 121 – 180 A.D.

**Chapter eleven, ****which brings some unexpected help and escape. **

Kim Possible felt alive. Truly alive.

She was free to act and could take the initiative. The choices were simple. Fight or hide? Left of right? Hit or kick?

She had just had a nasty chock. Someone she had worked with, even trusted, had turned out to be responsible for the attempts on their lives. The organisation she had worked for many times, and had considered joining, had turned out to be corrupt beyond her worst fears.

Added to that, she had just narrowly escaped death. The only way to avoid it would had seemed to be to compromise all her inner guidelines, all her gut feelings of right and wrong.

And whatever she would have had decided, she would in all probability have had to watch Shego die.

She wasn't used to seeing people pass that final frontier. She never killed people herself, and the villains she fought actually didn't either. Oh, they threatened a lot, and she had been in any number of death traps, but nothing had ever been carried out to the bitter end.

Now, she had instead had to see Will Du meet his maker. That was different, though. From their brief conversation, she had become quite convinced that he was, in fact, slightly mad. Mad and dangerous. And he _had_ wanted to use her or kill her.

And he _had_ planned to kill Shego, for no particular reason that she could understand.

This bothered her more than anything.

She had in some way gotten used to Shego. Most of the time, the pale woman was fun to be with. She was sarcastic and teasing, but she had a good sense of humour. Things were never boring around her.

She had also started to discover another Shego. A serious, lonely and maybe unhappy Shego. A Shego that made strange decisions, like helping Kim even if she thought the plan doomed to failure.

Maybe it was just guilt. Kim was after all to a great extent responsible for the current situation, and would have been partly to blame if Shego had died.

Or perhaps she had started caring for the abrasive green-tinted woman.

Anyway, at the moment, it was all action. Tough choices and introspection would have to wait. They had to fight their way out of some sort of secret base and escape.

A considerable challenge, to be sure. But this was the sort of thing that she actually enjoyed.

Yes, Kim Possible felt truly alive.

==##0##==

Shego had easily blasted her own constraints away. She couldn't hurt herself with her own plasma, so she did not have to hesitate using brute force.

Getting Kim free had been a bit more delicate. She had briefly looked for the controls for releasing the locks of the metal bands, but had given up. There were just too many switches and knobs on the instruments in the adjoining room. Instead, she had performed some precision plasma cutting, making sure that she didn't burn Kim too much in the process.

They had, however, found a security card in the breast pocket of Will Du's uniform.

"Excellent," Shego had said. "We can begin trying to sneak out, and hope to avoid outright fighting for a while!"

==##0##==

Luckily, the key card didn't need a code to work, at least not for getting out of the room they were in.

They were now moving along an empty corridor lined with closed doors.

There were no windows to be seen, and the walls and roof were not entirely straight. There were some irregularities and slight bends here and there. In combination with the slight but all pervading scent of damp, it led them to believe they were underground.

The walls were a dull gunmetal grey, the floors a little darker. The ceiling was invisible above all the cables, pipes and ventilation ducts.

"Even uglier than the typical Drakken lair!" Kim commented.

They were still dressed as they had been as captives. Neither of them had felt like stripping Will Du of his uniform, and put in on for disguise of protection. This meant that they both ran along the silent corridors in plain white t-shirts and blue boxer shorts.

Shego looked odd, going into action without her usual green and black cat-suit, or anything else in her favourite colour combination. Furthermore, her hair was still short after the cut Kim had given her at the Motel. Longer now, but still far from her usual flowing tresses.

Her skin had, however, returned to its usual light pistachio ice-cream colour since she had stopped applying the fake tan and body make-up. And she moved like she always did; fast, fluid, graceful.

Kim was happy to have her running alongside. It was the only familiar aspect in this whole sitch.

==##0##==

"Hush, Princess! Someone is coming!"

They communicated well without words: Shego quickly slipped into a doorway that was a little deeper than most, hiding from anyone approaching. Kim backed up a little, and prepared to distract whoever was coming. Shego held up one finger, and Kim nodded. Just one person.

A tall, middle-aged man in grey coveralls turned a corner ahead of them. He was carrying a clipboard in one hand and a coffee-mug in the other.

Kim smiled brightly when he saw her, and looked at him with large innocent eyes. "Oh, hi!" she said breathlessly. "I'm sure glad to see _you_!"

She used a sickly cute voice, suggesting the totally brainless pretty girl. "I seem to have lost my clothes somewhere. I wonder, could you tell me the way to the nearest Club Banana?"

The man's eyes widened in surprise as he continued walking towards this totally unexpected presence. It was nothing, however, to the way they bugged when he walked past the doorway where Shego was hiding, and received a sharp stab with the side of the hand to the back if his neck.

He crumpled bonelessly to the floor without a sound.

"Kind of your size, Shego! Care to make a fashion statement? I hear dirty grey is the new black!"

"Ha ha, Pumpkin. But just so you know, the next one is yours, even if he's wearing pink with purple polka dots!"

Once Shego had slipped the coveralls on, they quickly continued. Shego took out every security camera they came upon with well directed plasma bolts.

"This can't last much longer! The control room just _must_ have seen us by now!"

"Yeah, perhaps we should find somewhere to hide soon.

Just then they came upon a larger hall from which several corridors branched out. On one wall, there were the doors of two lifts.

The indicator boards by the lifts showed that there were at least 15 levels in the complex. One lift was near the top, and descending. The other lift was actually at their floor.

"Mr. Grey, there, must have come down in that one," Shego guessed. "Come on!"

They entered the elevator, and Kim quickly opened the service hatch in the roof. Shego gave her a boost up, and once on the roof of the cabin, Kim reached down to pull Shego up after her.

"So far, so good, Princess! At least they won't spot us immediately!"

Kim was glad, but not really surprised, that they seemed to think so alike, and act so in unison. They made an efficient team, even if their experience together came mostly from fighting each other.

"Let's rest a few seconds. Then we can start climbing!"

There was a gap between the two elevator shafts. On the back wall of the gap, a ladder extended up for as far as they could see.

"Oh, goody! Well, at least we may be out of reach from the security CCTV. And the cameras in the hall by the lifts wouldn't have had time to show anything of our movements before I fried them!"

"It won't help for long." Kim observed. "As soon as someone starts using his brain, they will guess where we went."

"So, get a move on, Princess! You first!"

"Aw, why me?" Kim whined, just to be difficult.

"So I can ogle your butt as you climb, of course. Now, git!"

Shego gave the rear end she claimed she wanted to watch an open-handed slap, like you would do to get a horse moving.

Kim gave a pathetic little 'eep', but did start climbing. She didn't really know how to take Shego's comment, but she figured the creepiness of having her behind watched would be compensated by the fact that this way, if she fell, she would fall on Shego, which might save her from a rather long drop.

After a while, the other lift passed them on its way down. They could hear people talking, and stood stock still on the ladder. If someone where to hear their footsteps on the metal rungs, they'd be spotted instantly.

They had not climbed more than about half the way to the top when the other lift came back up again. It stopped one or two floors down from the very top, before descending once more.

"Probably getting reinforcements. Let's not get out at that particular floor; might be the crew quarters…"

"Yeah," Shego said, "let's go on to the very top, to the machinery on top of the lift shafts. If we're lucky, that might just be a service level, for ventilation and stuff."

"OK! Top floor might also be close to the control room, or something. We should take down as many systems as we can before we try to get away."

==##0##==

They climbed as quickly as they could, and soon came to the top. The ladder led up to a system of catwalks around the two large cable wheels for the lifts, and two sizable electric motors. The walls were covered with fuse boxes, switches and the like. At one end, there was a metal door, looking a bit like something you would find in the lower decks of a battleship. There was no lock, just a big metal lever that engaged a metal flange when shut.

They squatted down on the catwalk by the door, listening for any sounds that might indicate if someone was on the other side.

In the end, they just had to take their chances. Shego looked at Kim and made a few hand signals, showing what she wanted her to do. Kim nodded to show that she was ready, and Shego opened the door.

They slipped quietly outside, into a small hall at the top of a staircase. Across from them, a steel and glass door led in to a large control room, just like Kim had expected.

==##0##==

The room was a very modern type of control centre. The main equipment seemed to be two large desktop computers, with enormous flat screen monitors. More screens were mounted on the wall. Between the computers, there was what looked like a big telephone switchboard, together with some sort of short wave radio equipment. To the right of the computer desk, farthest from the door, there was a standard rack for computer components, full of servers, hard disk drives and the like.

The wall facing the computer desk was taken up with shelves, containing what looked like telephone books but which were probably manuals or schematics for the various installations of the base. There was also a small kitchenette. At the end of the room there was a table and some chairs.

There were three persons in the room. Two men sat in office chairs by the computers, and the third, a woman of about 30, stood behind them, leaning against the counter of the kitchenette.

Shego pointed to Kim and then right, towards the standing woman. Then she held up three fingers, folding them down one at a time.

When all fingers had been folded down into a fist, Shego blew the door in with a massive blast of green plasma. Kim instantly jumped through, going diagonally from the left of Shego and towards the woman by the kitchenette.

Shego took the other diagonal a fraction of a second later, slamming into the man at the closest computer and taking the other one out with a flash of green fire.

It probably didn't take even two seconds. The men were out cold, and Kim held the woman in a stranglehold from behind. Shego quickly took out the CCTV cameras in the control room and then turned her attention towards Kim and her prisoner.

The woman in Kim's grip, however, started making frantic gestures towards something at the bottom of the rack of computer equipment. Shego followed her pointing fingers and saw something that looked more like a piece of stereo equipment at the bottom of the stack. She reduced it to a smoking ruin and turned back to their hostage.

"Good," the woman said. "Voice recorder. Sort of like the black box in an airplane."

"And that would be important because ...?" Kim asked.

"Because I do not want anyone else to hear what I will tell you now!"

Shego led the woman to one of the chairs by the table and sat her down. "But we can hear it, right?"

"Right." The woman collected her thoughts for a while before continuing. "Look, my name is not important. I have been with the GJ for six years now, and I can't get out. I'm sort of important to them, as a computer expert and in ... other capacities. They have ... ways ... of keeping you. Still, I do not like it here anymore, and I wouldn't be at all sorry if someone were to bring some trouble down on the whole sorry mess. Not me, though. But someone else."

"Yeah, we get it", Shego said. "You're secretly cheering for the other team, but you don't want to rock the boat."

"Well, that's one way up putting it. Anyway, we probably don't have much time. Listen to what I can tell you, knock me out, and then get out of here!"

Kim and Shego nodded.

"OK, so this is one of the middle sized bases of the covert operations of the GJ. We didn't build it, it's a remnant from some cold war super-secret thing. It's huge, but most of the levels are actually not used anymore. There's usually a crew of about sixty, but twenty of us are away at the moment. They took the two big choppers and went to help with some operation or other. You took down Chopper 3, as well as Reconnaissance 1."

The woman stood up and started removing her uniform while she talked. "You'll be wanting this, I guess," she said before continuing her account.

"We have four jet fighters stationed here. Together with the helicopters that gives us a small strike force capability for the north-western US and Canada. The rest of what we do here is mainly intelligence work, the monitoring of radio traffic and such." - -

- - "The fighters are Hawker Siddeley Harrier VTOLs. They are in the hangar on the third level down. There is no need of a runway for them, of course, and not for the choppers either, but there is a small dirt airstrip down in the valley for the reconnaissance planes, R1 and R2. R2 is still down there, more or less ready to take off." - -

- - "Now, the main entrance is also down by the hangar. There is, however, an emergency exit from here; through that door behind us. It opens on a short tunnel that emerges in a hidden lock-out post on the hillside. If I were you, I'd use that. You might want to do something with the control system first, though. Might I suggest the Emergency Lockdown protocol? And please make it look like I put up some resistance before you leave!"

Shego turned to the nearest computer and looked at the screen. She soon found what she was looking for, and a sharp beeping sound burst forth from speakers in the roof as she made a few clicks with the mouse. The radio equipment squawked into life. "Hey, control, this is Team 1. What's up? Why are you locking the doors?"

Shego grabbed a microphone. "Control to Team 1! Sorry, new strategy. We need to contain them. Back-up well be moving through the levels one by one, with override key cards!"

Shego then shut the communication down. "That won't really fool them, you know," their informant said, shivering a bit in her underwear. "You'd better hurry! And ... good luck!"

"Thanks!" Shego said, and punched her viciously in the jaw. The woman went over backwards, smashing the table. Shego hit her a few more times for good measure, and ended the treatment with burning the woman's right hand with her plasma. Kim felt bad about the injuries so easily handed out, but knew that worse could happen if the GJ suspected that they had been given some help escaping.

"That ought to do it! Now, come on!"

Kim had finished putting the uniform on, and soon they were moving quickly through a tunnel roughly hewn out of the living rock. The passage was not full height, and they had to crouch down while running.

The look-out post was just a small round chamber, with a narrow slit running round half the circumference. It looked like a WWII gun emplacement, but there were no weapons in sight, and the dust on the floor made it obvious that the room hadn't been used for some time.

==##0##==

There was a round hatch in the roof, and metal rungs were mounted of the wall under it. Kim and Shego lost no time getting outside, and soon found themselves on the side of a hill. Some twenty meters below them, the floor of a valley stretched away from them. There was a fairly long flat stretch of gravel, looking a bit like a dried up river bed, and the sides of the valley were not very high. It was not immediately recognizable as an airstrip, but would serve that purpose nicely for the Harriers and for a biplane such as the red R1 they had taken down earlier.

Scrambling down the hillside, Kim and Shego soon discovered a large opening in the cliffs below and to the right of them. In the shadow of what looked like a huge natural cave, the broad metal doors of a hangar could be seen. The sound of an alarm emerged from the still open doors. Evidently the Emergency Lockdown didn't shut all the doors. Perhaps the hangar doors were not affected since there might be need to get the aircrafts out also in the case of an attack on the base.

This suited Kim and Shego well. They ran quickly down to the hangar and peeked in.

As promised, four Harrier jets stood in the large open space of the hangar, in various stages of maintenance. Three mechanics stood about, talking, by a small hut inside the hangar. They gesticulated animatedly, pointing to the loudspeakers emitting the alarm, and to the obviously locked doors that led inside to the rest of the base.

Closest to the open doors of the hangar, however, there was a biplane just like the red one they had seen earlier, but bright yellow.

"I do hope that one is ready to go!" Kim whispered.

"Only one way to find out! Go grab the propeller and get ready to start when I say 'contact'!", Shego answered. She then strolled up to the group of mechanics.

"Hey, guys! What's going on?" Dressed in the grey coveralls she had taken from the first guy they had met, she hoped they wouldn't instantly recognize her as an intruder.

"Not a clue," one of the men said. "The alarm went off, and now we can't get back in. And Control isn't answering. "

"Aw, don't worry! That's the least of your problems."

All three men did slap-stick type of double takes at Shego's comment. They did not have time to do much else, though. Shego had walked right up to them and had no trouble knocking them out before they could even think of resisting.

Kim stood by the biplane, waiting nervously while Shego then ran past all the four jets, collapsing the landing wheels on each with a blast of plasma. The jets tipped over, smashing their wings on the ground. Nobody in their right mind would try to take off with that kind of potential damage to the airframe.

"OK, Princess, CONTACT!" Shego shouted, vaulting into the cockpit and flicking switches.

Kim gave the prop a sharp twist and the engine roared into life. "Boyaah!" she whispered, feeling that a small, careful measure of triumph was called for.

There was no time for pre-flight checks, and the plane was moving out of the hangar before Kim had finished settling in the aft cockpit.

The plane shot down the gravel runway, and rose steeply over the hills and trees at the end of the valley.

==##0##==

They had done it! They were out of the secret base, and they had discovered more than they had expected about the identity of their adversaries. Despite the almost disastrous encounter with Will Du, they had got what they came for!

Kim Possible felt truly alive and high on an adrenaline rush as she sat in the airplane, watching the landscape rush past just below her as Shego flew as close to the ground as she dared.

_With some help from Shego, I really can do anything!_ She thought.

==##0##==

A/N. And from near disaster to successful escape! Less talk and more action in this chapter, too. But where will they go now? And how will they continue to evade the GJ turned bad?

There might be a small delay before I can put the next chapters up, due to a business trip. Or not, maybe transatlantic flights are just what's needed for writing. As long as the laptop batteries don't die too quickly!

Until then, please read and review!


	13. Chapter 13

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

"_In vino veritas"__(__in wine [there is the] truth)  
_Latin saying, recorded by Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus), 23 – 79 AD.

**Chapter 13, which brings a cold bath and its consequences. **

Kim Possible was cold. Very cold.

Unlike Mr. Barnstormer's Nellie, the cockpit of the yellow R2 reconnaissance biplane was enclosed. A Plexiglas hood was made to slide forward and cover the two seats, giving at least some protection from the wind. The cabin wasn't heated, though, and neither was it free from drafts, so flying in just indoor clothing was a bit chilly. It was a bit like riding a motorbike in you shirtsleeves on a cold morning.

Kim knew herself well enough, however, to understand that most of her chills came from delayed reactions to the meeting with Will Du.

Now that the running and fighting were over for the moment, her body had time to process what had happened, and proceeded to inform her how serious and nearly fatal the encounter had been.

It wasn't a matter of thinking about it. It was an instinctive and subconscious reaction and therefore all the harder to avoid.

And now she was stuck in cockpit of a very small airplane.

Kim shivered. She was cold. Very cold.

==##0##==

The Plexiglas hood wasn't very efficient at keeping the noise out, either. There had been no headphones or microphones in the plane when they took it and Kim had to shout to get Shego's attention.

"Shit, Shego, can't you fly just a little higher! I could count the eggs in the bird's nest in that last treetop!"

"Sorry, Pumpkin! Got to keep below the radar! In case you didn't notice, the control room we took out was not flight control."

"It wasn't? How do you know?"

"No radar screens, not enough radio equipment, no maps and weather data, ..."

"OK, OK! So, somewhere in the base, they can see where we're going?"

"No, not as long as I fly like this, they can't. They could have some sort of beacon on the plane itself, though."

"Spankin!" Kim muttered. She started looking around her in the cockpit for any suspicious equipment. Unfortunately, since she was in an airplane, everything looked suspicious to her.

"Don't worry, Princess!" Shego said, reaching in under the instrument panel in front of her and tearing out a thick cable. "I'll just disconnect everything!"

"Shego!! What if you had killed the engine!"

"No worries. It will keep firing as long as the axle turns and the magnetos work. And everything important can be handled mechanically on a crate like this!"

Kim sank back in her chair, still a bit unsure about the wisdom of ripping an airplane to pieces in mid-air. Something else caught her attention, though.

"Look, Shego! Maps!" She poked a map in a stiff plastic cover at Shego's shoulder.

"Yeah, nice, but not now, Bubbles! Can't take my eyes 'off the road'! You'll have to be the navigator. Just get us back towards civilisation!"

Kim studied the map and the landscape under the plane. It wasn't all that easy to distinguish any landmarks since they were flying so low. She also didn't really now where they had started from. It seemed the secret base was so secret that they didn't even mark it on their own maps. After a while, though, she thought she could identify the valley with the small airstrip they had used for take-off.

She looked over Shego's shoulder at the compass on the instrument panel. East. "OK, I don't really know where we are, but we should come to a road running north-south sooner or later. If we follow that south, we should end up in a small town. A very small town."

"Gotcha! Road, then south!" Shego acknowledged.

==##0##==

About ten minutes later, they suddenly passed low over a narrow black-top road. Shego turned south along it, and started flying like she wanted to put the landing wheels down at any moment.

Following the road, they started seeing the odd house, but no villages or towns, no people and little traffic. They probably scared the pants off the driver of a battered pick-up truck that they overtook, flying at about ten meters of altitude.

"Why would they keep such an old rattler of an airplane around, do you think?" Kim shouted after a while. "And why paint it yellow?"

"It's not old, Princess, and it's actually quite a nifty little plane. Don't let the double-decker layout fool you! Excellent manoeuvrability, can land on a dime. A real joy to fly!"

"Well, if it's such a good little plane, why didn't they fit a fucking heater?"

Shego laughed. "Not a priority, I'd think. And if we had jackets, boots and helmets, we'd be just fine!"

Kim grumbled. "And the colour? It's _yellow_!"

"Don't know, kid. Maybe they want it to look like some bush pilot flying hunters or hikers around. Hiding in plain sight, like!"

"'Plane' sight? Oh, puh-lease!?"

After a while, they spotted a lake in the distance ahead.

"Yay! I know where we are, now! Eh ... still quite far from the town, though!"

"Well, that's a pity, Pumpkin! 'Cause this seems to be as far as we're going, anyway!"

"Er ... why is that, then?"

"Out of gas! Look!" Shego pointed to a gauge on the panel in front of her. "It can't have had a full tank when we 'borrowed' it! No way it should be guzzling this much soup!"

Kim groaned. "So, what do we do now? Can you land it on the road?"

"No can do! The trees are standing much too close. And I can see no open fields level enough, either. It's got to be the lake!"

"Well, shit! I already took a bath, this month!"

"Don't worry. I'll come in real slow. You jump just before we hit, and see that you get well clear!"

Shego pulled a toggle at the front of the cockpit, causing the glass hood to detach. The wind pulled it away instantly, and did its best to take Kim's breath away, too.

Shego pulled back on the stick, gaining a little altitude so that they wouldn't come straight down the moment the gas ran out. They were closer to the lake now, and started making a slow turn to line them up for an emergency landing.

Shego approached the water surface like she intended to make a normal landing, but pulled sharply back on the stick just before the wheels got wet. The aircraft stalled and lost most of its airspeed.

Kim jumped over the side the moment she thought she was low enough, plunging deep. The impact was bruising, and the water ice cold. If she had been cold before, she was now almost shocked numb.

When she broke the surface, she spotted the plane at once. Despite the low speed, the machine must have flipped over forward the moment the water caught the landing wheels. It was now floating on its back, already half submerged. Two of the wings had been torn lose in the crash, and were merrily floating away like small, bright yellow surfboards.

Suddenly, an underwater burst of green fire disintegrated the wreckage into quickly sinking pieces, and Shego surfaced close by.

She pointed to the closest shore, where a small wooden jetty could be seen. A few boats rested on the beach, upside down on trestles.

Kim kicked off the boots she had gotten from the secretly helpful GJ agent, and pulled off the uniform. When she was again down to t-shirt and boxers, she started swimming. Shego made a detour to sink the loose wings, removing all evidence of the crash, before heading for the shore after Kim.

==##0##==

A narrow path led from the shore towards a small house or cabin, almost hidden by the trees growing closely to the water's edge. They ran up the path in their dripping wet underwear, hoping for some assistance. When they came closer, however, it became clear that nobody would be home. The windows were all shuttered, and the door was looked with a metal bar and a padlock. Garden furniture was stacked on the porch, partly covered by a tattered tarpaulin. It was evidently a summer cottage rather than a permanent home, and it looked like it had been locked up for the winter.

Shego made short work of the locks, of course, and Kim slunk inside, grateful for the shelter. To their surprise, there was electricity in the cabin. Shego found the main switch just inside the door, and started padding around, switching on lights and heating. Kim went in search of a bathroom. "Please, let there be hot water! Please!"

She found a small bathroom with a shower stall and an electrical water heater. "Yes! Thank heaven for small mercies!"

She showered quickly to let Shego take her turn, and soon found herself in the kitchen, wrapped in a towel from the bathroom cupboard.

Since the electricity had been switched off when they arrived, there was nothing in the freezer or the fridge. The cupboards didn't contain much in the way of food, either. Kim found some stale crackers, a jar of blackcurrant jam, some oatmeal and a can of tuna.

When Shego joined her, also towel wrapped, she found a bottle of Jack Daniels and a packet of cornflakes which, however, according to the droppings left behind, had been a feast for the local population of mice.

The kitchen was small and cosy, but the shutters over the window made it a bit claustrophobic. The appliances were old and well used, and the woodwork could use a coat of paint. It was a very nice room, though, compared to the underground rooms of the secret Global Justice base.

Kim wasn't totally satisfied, though.

"I'm still cold!" she whined. "And hungry. What time is it, do you think?"

"I've no idea. It's getting dark though, so we must have missed a couple of meals, at least."

There was a radio on a shelf above the stove, and Kim switched it on. Sooner or later, someone would tell them the time.

While Kim went in search of the bedroom, and some blankets, Shego started preparing what she could for dinner. Oatmeal porridge with blackcurrant jam, and tuna on crackers. And whiskey. She had had to make do with worse.

Kim didn't appreciate the menu, though. She didn't like the jam, and the porridge tasted like wallpaper glue. The tuna can was very small and the crackers tasted slightly off. And in the end, there wasn't enough.

"Aw, I'm still hungry. And still cold. Isn't there _anything_ else?"

"Just the whiskey!

"Gimme some, then!"

"Why, Princess! Surely you aren't old enough to drink?"

"I so am! Or almost, anyway. And this would be for medicinal purposes! It's an emergency! I've got to get this oatmeal taste out of my mouth!"

Kim stuck out her tongue, as if Shego would be able to see the taste of the porridge on it.

"Ew, Kimmie! I'm an upright, law-abiding citizen, nowadays! Don't ask me to corrupt the youth of America and give you hard liquor to drink!"

Kim started whining even more.

"And don't you dare to try that creepy puppy dog face on me. I'll just bop you on the nose again!"

"But come on, Sheegs! I need to wind down a little, here!"

"Well, you shouldn't do it with whiskey, kid! It's not good for you!"

"But it's all good for you, then, is it?"

"No, but I like it!"

"Hypocrite!"

"Yes?"

Kim sighed. "Shego, today was really one hell of a day!"

"Well, you can't start drinking every time you hit a rough patch!"

"A ROUGH PATCH? Shego, the bloody maniac wanted to put a poison bomb in me to make me his assassin! He wanted to kill you, for no particular reason I could understand! We fought our way out of a secret base of freaking commandoes! We stole an airplane! And we crashed in the goddam freezing lake! A rough patch? I don't mind Drakken's death traps. I'm not bothered with the oh so polite but still lethal schemes of señor Senior! I don't even mind Monkey Fist's fucking monkey ninjas! But this – the man was one creepy bad crazy dude! And we killed him!"

Shego looked at Kim for a while. The younger woman was still shaking a little, from the cold or from sheer exhaustion. Or from a bad case of nerves.

"Sorry, Princess." she said, eventually. "I've seen this kind of shit before. I guess I forgot that you haven't. Go ahead. If you really want to, go ahead and try. But not too much!"

With that, Shego gave Kim half a glass of bourbon and water. Kim promptly choked on the drink, coughing until she got tears in her eyes.

"Shit on a stick! Is that the way it's supposed to taste?"

"You'll get used to it. Or not, preferably."

"Well, I feel a bit warmer, anyway ..."

"That's probably just due to your trying to cough your lungs up."

Kim took a careful sip, and this time managed to swallow it without problems.

"Maybe it isn't as awful as I thought?"

==##0##==

Kim Possible giggled.

"I just can't forget those mechanics guys when you walked up to them in that hangar! The look on their faces! They just like: 'huh'? and 'wham', and then ... 'thud'?"

All sorts of faces and gestures came with this line of speech.

"Yeah, Pumpkin, real funny!" Shego answered in a strained voice.

==##0##==

Kim Possible leaned forward, looking very serious.

"Shego! Isn't it funny? Here we are! Me and my ... archneneni... archemeny ... archnemynis ... augh! _Arsch foe_! Together!"

"Yes, Princess, real funny!" Shego sighed, patience beginning to wear thin.

==##0##==

Kim propped her chin up with her hands, elbows on the table. A silly smile hovered on her face.

"Scheego! You know? Your skin is really green! Look! All over!" Kim made a grab for Shego's towel, but missed. "'s beau'ful! So beau'ful!"

"Yeah, Sweetie-Pie! Just beautiful!"

==##0##==

Kim Possible had her head on the table, crying a little.

"Shego? You're my bestest friend! And my onliest friend! Ain't it just too freakin' sad?. Ron is stoopid. An' he's dating Monique! And stoopid! And Wade doesn't like me anymore! He wants little Josh! My little cousin Josh! And Bonnie ... ish a bitsch!!"

"Yes, Kimmie, Bonnie is a bitch." _Dear God, what have I done to deserve this_!

==##0##==

Shego put the dishes away and cleaned the table. The radio DJ breathlessly announced that he would take a short break for commercials and be back at nine o'clock for a full hour of the best old style classic rock ever. Time to hit the sack.

"Come on, you little delinquent! It's past your bedtime!"

"Nah! I don' wanna go to bed!"

"Well, you should! It's late and you're very, very ... tired."

"All right! But only if you come to bed, too!"

"Sure, Princess, I'm tired, too! Now, let me carry you, it'll be quicker."

Shego picked the younger girl up in her arms, and Kim started singing the Wagner bridal chorus from 'Lohengrin' as they passed the threshold. At this stage in the evening's procedures, her singing voice wasn't at its best.

"Kimmie, shut up, or I'll drop you on your head!"

"Oh, eeevil! Eeeevil Scheego! Eeevil and dangerousch! And here's me, at your merschy"

Like in uncle Slim's cabin, there was a single bedroom with a king-size double bed. Shego put Kim down, removed the towel, and tucked her in.

"Scheego? ... I loves you!"

"Sure you do, Pumpkin. Let's just see how that works out in the morning!"

After a bathroom visit, Shego also got ready for bed and slipped under the covers on the other side of the bed.

Kim lay quite still, staring at the ceiling, a puzzled look on her face.

"Shego?"

"_Yes_, Kimmie! What _now_?"

"I don't feel all that good!"

==##0##==

After cleaning the floor and changing the sheets on Kim's side of the bed, Shego was finally ready for sleep. Oatmeal porridge luckily wasn't that hard to mop up, not even the re-cycled kind.

Kim had gone out like a light after seeing her dinner a second time, and was now sleeping soundly on what had originally been Shego's side of the bed. She was snoring gently and looked slightly flushed.

Bet she isn't cold, anymore, Shego thought. Who'd have thought just two small whiskeys would get her so wasted?

Kim Possible was out cold.

==##0##==

A/N. Shorter chapter this time. Just what I could write on the plane to Washington before the batteries gave out.

Sorry about the contents, also, having Kim drinking whiskey like that, and getting quite silly. Take it as a warning, not an encouragement to drink! And wait for next chapter to see how Kim will be feeling in the morning!

Please read and review if you want more of the story!


	14. Chapter 14

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

"_They do not love that do not show their love."  
_from 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona' by William Shakespeare, 1564(?) – 1616

**Chapter 1****4, which brings sobering thoughts and revelations. **

Kim Possible had a headache. A real bummer of a headache.

It was even worse than when Bonnie's 'clumsiness' had made her fall from the top of the cheerleader pyramid, hitting her head on the floor of the gym. And that had given her a pretty bad concussion.

So, she had a headache. On the other hand, she was finally warm and lying in a soft and comfy bed. And someone was cradling her in their arms, comforting her and holding her safe. Was it her mother? She hadn't done that since Kim was fourteen, if she remembered correctly. At some point about then, she had declared herself too big for cuddling.

She didn't feel all that big, just now, though, and the strong but soft arms that held her where very welcome.

The funny thing was, however, that she couldn't really figure out what had happened, where she was, and who held her. The room wasn't familiar. It was very dark, and much too quiet to be in her parent's house, or anywhere around Middleton for that matter. She could hear no traffic noises at all. Instead, there an excited chorus of crazy birds, and there was a distinct smell of pine trees and tarred wood. The arm that she rested her head on was a woman's arm. A younger woman. Not her mother. What the...?

And then it hit her. She remembered where she was, how she came to be there, and who it must be behind her back, holding her tight.

Vague memories from the previous evening suddenly reared ugly heads, whispering and hissing about various things she might have said and done. And talking about heads, the headache suddenly doubled in intensity.

Oh shit. Kim Possible suddenly wished that the headache was her only problem.

==##0##==

"Shego?"

"Mmh?"

"Shego! What are we doing?"

"Sleeping, Princess. At least I _was_ sleeping!"

"What time is it?"

"Whatever the time, it's too early. Please be quiet and stop fussing!"

Kim turned around and found herself face to face with a very sleepy woman.

"Shego?"

"Oh, for crying out loud! What part about 'shut up and sleep' don't you understand?"

"The part where you are holding me in your arms?"

"Oh. That. Well, you were kind of restless last night. First you did a technicolor yawn on the floor and half the bed, and passed out. And then you started moaning and tossing in your sleep. I had to hold you to keep you still. Otherwise I couldn't have slept a wink!"

"Oh-kay? Thanks, I guess?"

"Princess, don't worry. You got a bit drunk on whiskey, and said a lot of crazy stuff, but nothing bad happened, apart from your redecoration of the floor and the sheets."

"Oh! Whiskey. Well, that explains the headache. And why I don't remember much except, for some reason, a horrible taste of porridge!"

"Poor Pumpkin! Hangover, huh? I know how you feel. Here, let me help!"

Shego sat up in the bed, showing that she had found a large reddish flannel shirt to use as a nightdress. "Where does it hurt?"

"Head? You know, on top of neck?"

"Yeah, I guessed that, but can you show me more exactly?"

Kim pointed to her temples. "Here, mostly! And sort of behind the eyes!"

Shego began giving Kim a soothing massage. She concentrated on the sides of Kim's head, but also found some sore spots in the muscles at the base of the skull. It was restful, but didn't have much effect on the level of pain, until ...

"Eep! What are you doing?"

"Hush, Princess, just some heat therapy, using my glow at low-level setting!"

Once over the surprise, Kim quickly found that Shego's ministrations really worked. The heat, accompanied by a slight green sparkle, seemed to make the pain just flow out of her head, like the draining of dirty dishwater from the kitchen sink.

"Wow! That's amazing! How did you do that?"

"Feel better?"

"I feel fine!" Kim said. "Relaxed. Almost sleepy, again, though!"

"Well, that's typical! Now, _I_ am wide awake!" Despite that, Shego dropped down in the bed and pulled Kim towards her again. Kim did not protest, but gave a small sigh.

"Shego?"

"Yeah?"

"Shego, I don't think I want to call the shots on this sitch anymore. My decisions haven't been all that good, lately!"

"Come on, Pumpkin. You did your best!"

"Well, not really good enough, now, was it?"

"But we got what we needed.

"No, I've been wrong all the way! I went on a mission and thought I found the mad scientist and his sidekick stealing power, and you turned out to be the victim. If you hadn't had to drag me along, you might have escaped the bad guys with the big bombs, but I got you your legs crushed!"

"Kimmie..."

" ... and at the hospital, I was supposed to watch out for you, but instead you ended up having to kill a man to save my butt!"

"Pumpkin ..."

"... and then I got myself in trouble with that filthy pig, and you had to save me again! And I decided we should go look for the bad guys, and promptly got us caught, and you had to kill a man _again _to save me! No, I can't keep calling the shots on this!"

"Princess, shut up! _You_ saved _me_, at the hospital, and you got me away! And in case you hadn't noticed, the wacko wanted to kill _me_ as some sort of statement, and that kinda made the decision to off him a bit personal! And we did get away, and we did get a lot more information than I ever expected!"

Kim did understand what Shego was saying, and recognised there was some truth of it. It didn't help all that much with the way she felt, though. She had come up against a number of sobering revelations. Fighting villains had not really prepared her for the perhaps less dramatic but all-pervading wickedness of the world.

Drakken was a self-proclaimed evil genius, but his activities were a least in some way honest in all their pathetic criminality. He tried something outrageous; Kim stopped him; and he sort of accepted defeat. Not gracefully, but still ...

Strange enough, it was all in some way quite friendly and entertaining.

The GJ Covert Operations was something else; though, a sort of institutionalised and distributed malice. In some ways, it was like cancer cells spreading inside the body of an agency that she still couldn't help visualising in the figure of Dr. Director. Opposing this new GJ was like trying to fight a many-headed hydra that kept hiding behind people she had though friendly and objects she had thought harmless.

She had also discovered the much more mundane but still shockingly brutal and selfish ruthlessness of Mike the garage owner, who wanted to take advantage of their vulnerability to force himself on her. Whatever Drakken, Killigan or Fiske had ever done, none of them had ever even hinted at violating her integrity like that.

This was a whole new ball game, and she didn't like it. She said as much.

"But I don't want to do this anymore!"

"Kimmie, do you remember what I said earlier? In the car? About this going bad? You made a choice, then. You could have let me disappear, and you could still have gone back and arranged things with the police. But you didn't. Now you have to go through with it! There's no other way!"

"I know!" Kim whined. "And I will go on. But I'd still like somebody else to tell me what to do and that it's alright."

"Aw, Kimsie-Wimsie needs her mummy!"

Kim curled up tighter, like a frightened child. "Well, yeah, but not for that. She'd just freak!"

She would like someone to comfort her and help her find her way in this predicament, but it needed to be someone who understood their opponents and the options before them. Mrs. Dr. P. had an inner wisdom and a good analytical capacity, but luckily enough, she had no experience of the darker sides of society and the more unsavoury aspects of law enforcement.

"So you need someone else, that wouldn't freak, and who would also be around here, somewhere. Wonder who that could be?"

"Don't tease, Shego. I need some help here!"

"Well, I can't be a mother for you, Princess."

"No, that's OK. I already got one of those. I ... eh ... don't have any sisters, though. Couldn't you be, like, my big sis?"

Shego was a few years older, and she had seen a lot more than Kim had of the shady world they were now immersed in. If she could just curb her sarcasm and her inborn need to be difficult, she could be a great support. Kim would even be prepared to let her decide and plan the next steps in their campaign. She would trust her with that.

Shego didn't answer for along time, though.

"No, Kim", she finally said. "I don't think I can do that."

"Oh!" Kim was disappointed. "Sorry. Did I come too close, there?"

Shego said nothing, but held Kim a bit tighter.

"Shego?" Kim felt the other woman leaning her head closer, burrowing into her hair.

"No, Kim. That's not it."

Kim didn't get it for a long time. Eventually, however, a suspicion struck her.

"Does this have anything to do with looking at my butt when climbing that ladder?"

"Not really, Pumpkin, that was mostly teasing ..."

" ... but still ... Are you telling me Cousin Joss was onto something?"

And Shego again said nothing.

Kim sighed. "Shego, you've got to say something. You can't just leave it at that!"

She felt Shego shake her head, face still buried in Kim's hair.

Kim spent some time trying to gauge her reactions to the situation she was beginning to grasp. In an instant, her perception of reality had shifted in a multitude of minor ways. All her previous encounters with Shego suddenly appeared in a different light. Some of the banter and verbal fighting took on a different meaning. And the current situation, lying in the same bed, Shego holding Kim in her arms like she was a child or a cuddly toy, took on another meaning altogether.

Eventually, Kim turned around, ending up leaning her forehead against the other woman, looking her in the eyes.

"Shego, am I understanding this correctly?"

"Probably" Shego muttered, not meeting Kim's eyes.

"Is this why you went with me, looking for the base, even though you thought the plan would fail?"

A small nod.

"Oh, Shego!" Kim fell silent, thinking.

Now, this was big. Sure, Shego was kind of fun to be with. She was intelligent and capable. She had recently revealed a more serious, and perhaps even vulnerable, side, and underneath all the sarcasm and anger there might even be a sort of nice and caring person. This, Kim could handle. It was sort of like a double exposure of the usual Shego with the persona of Miss Go.

But what Shego did not say out loud and clear, but was obviously implying, went so much further. Was she ... interested? In Kim? Like that?

In one way, this was so not the drama. Kim had encountered lots of guys that had shown some sort of flirtatious interest, and it had never been awkward or difficult. Most of them, she just ignored, and to some of them she had had to say a polite 'no'. Some, like Josh Mankey and others, she had tried dating. And she had tried her best with Ron, of course.

This was not the usual boy on the prowl, though. It was someone she had sort of known for a long time, it was a woman, it was a villain, and it was Shego. And probably she was more serious than the average love-struck schoolboy. It must have been a big deal, indeed, for the proud and independent professional side-kick to show herself 'soft' enough to even hint at the her feelings.

So where did that leave Kim? What was her gut reaction? Somewhat to her surprise, she did not suddenly feel uneasy or embarrassed by the closeness to the other woman. However, she did not feel much else, either. To be wrapped in Shego's arms was mostly comforting, a bit like being held by Nana Possible or by a close friend, like Monique. Was she supposed to feel anything else? Should she scream and jump out of bed in outraged disgust? Or was she expected to move in for some making out?

"Come on, damn you!" Shego burst out. "Say something! Anything! Please?"

"Look, Shego, this is a bit sudden. I'm really not sure at all. You're a nice person, and I think I kind of like you, but I have never ever thought about you in ... that way before. Please don't push it! Let's just ... see where we end up, OK?"

"Just so you know, I've beaten people to bloody pulps before, just for calling me 'nice'!"

"Yeah, I'm sure you have. Just give me a little warning, and you're welcome to try!" Kim turned around again and snuggled backwards, closer to Shego. "Do we have to get up, or can we sleep a little bit more?"

Shego evidently appreciated the vote of confidence that Kim showed by not leaping away from her, and agreed to 'just five minutes more'.

==##0##==

Kim's world had changed quite a lot recently. Monique was dating Ron. Ron had got himself a new attitude, and wasn't the loyal side-kick anymore. Wade had the hots for Cousin Joss. Cousin Joss, while not exactly in the world-saving trade, at least came to the rescue of largish parts of individual states of the union. The Global Justice had turned into a ruthless and brutal covert operations agency, and the friendly local car mechanic was a would-be rapist.

And Shego wanted to ... date her? Well, compared to all the other stuff, this was totally the least of her problems. If it even was a problem.

==##0##==

When Kim woke up the second time, Shego was already up. She had left a stack of clothes on a chair by the bed. A pair of men's boxer shorts, another flannel shirt, a pair of jeans, and socks. Everything was a bit too large for her, but she made do. There was a belt for the jeans so she didn't have to risk doing a Stoppable and loose the pants.

She found Shego in the kitchen, cooking something on the stove.

"Oh no! Not more oatmeal porridge!"

"Hi there Pumpkin! No, actually not." Shego lifted the lid and let Kim take a sniff. "It's actually a rabbit stew with some wild leeks and some nuts and stuff I found. And _some_ oats."

"You went hunting?"

"Yeah, fastest finger in the west!" Shego held up her hand in a James Bond pose, making the tip of her index finger glow slightly.

"Even better, though, I looked around the shed in the back! Guess what I found?"

"A large stone with a sword in it?"

Shego gave Kim a concerned look. "No, a motorbike! An old one, to be sure, but there's some gas in it and it starts! So we're getting out of here the moment it gets dark!"

"So we're gonna steal it?"

Shego turned around and fixed Kim with a stern gaze. "Listen, Princess, you wanted someone else to call the shots? Well, I'm doing it! You listen to me and I'll get us away from here. And we sure can't do it by walking, so we're taking the bike. _Capisce_?"

Kim looked a Shego for a few moments. "OK! We do it like you think it should be done. And ... thanks."

"Good! Now, while I finish cooking this, you go on a hunt for anything useful. And please find some money! Look under the cushions of the sofa, look everywhere. We have to have some food and gas for the journey!"

"Right ho, Sarge!" Kim said with a showy salute, before making an about turn and marching out.

==##0##==

When the stew was ready, Shego went in search of Private Possible. She found her in the living room with an empty glass jar, writing on a slip of paper.

"Sarge, found some money, Sarge, Sir!

She proudly pointed to a small wad of bills and a heap of change.

"Excellent! And what, pray, are you doing now?"

"Writing an IOU for the amount, Sir!

Shego slapped her forehead in exasperation. "Kimmie, the idea is _not_ to leave any clues we were here. How can you even think of leaving an IOU?"

"Well, if the GJ comes here soon, they'll probably already suspect we were here anyway. And if they don't, the owners will find it by spring, and we'll be long gone!"

"Hm. Still don't think you should be leaving your address or number."

"Well, I'm not doing that, actually. See? 'For reimbursement, call this number'. And that's the old direct line for Dr. Director at GJ headquarters!"

Shego burst out laughing.

"Kimmie, that's so dam' cocky that I'll even let you go ahead and do it! Now, let's eat!"

==##0##==

The meal was surprisingly tasty, even though there were oats in it.

By the time they had eaten, it was just over three o'clock in the afternoon.

"OK, Kimmie! I'll go out and get the bike ready, and load up what we may want to bring. You tidy up a bit in here, so we don't leave a mess!"

To Shego's relief, Kim had dropped the military jargon, and instead acknowledged the order with a cheery "Sure, boss! 'Ats'a fine, boss!"

Shego shook her head, and went out through the back door.

==##0##==

Coming back in, an hour later, she found Kim in the bedroom.

"Pumpkin, what the hell are you doing?"

"Just making some false tracks, boss!"

The false tracks consisted of her placing the bear skin that had been lying in front of the living room fireplace in bed, arranging it to look like a there was a real animal under the covers. She had placed the empty bottle of whisky in its right paw.

"The bear drank the whiskey, ate the oatmeal, stole the money, and passed out in bed?"

"Yes, your honour! That's actually precisely what happened, your honour!"

"Kimberly Anne, you know you are a complete nut-job, don't you?"

"Yes, your honour! Guilty as charged, your honour!"

"And I was going to suggest that we rest a bit before setting off. And now, Fozzie the Bear here has hogged half the bed!"

"Oops! Well, we still have the sofa!"

"Kimmie, that's a pretty narrow sofa!"

"So, I'll take the sofa and you'll just have to decide if you want to squeeze in beside little me or Mr. Bear."

Shego gave her a long look. "Kim, you aren't just making fun of me, now, are you? You do understand that I sort of ... like you? You really shouldn't treat this as some joke, you know? Please don't do pretend you are coming on to me if you don't mean it!"

Kim sighed. She had been caught up in a sort of mischievous mood, what with the IOU and the bear, and she realized she had felt good for the first time in many days. Perhaps the idea of Shego caring for her had lifted her spirits without her thinking too much about it.

But she hadn't thought about it, and now she was evidently hurting Shego by not taking things seriously enough. Shit.

"Shego, look, I'm not trying to make a fool of you. I'm glad you are here. I don't mind being close to you. I don't know if there can be more. I've never thought about stuff like that at all. And I just don't know. I can't be something I'm not and I don't know what to do just now!"

Shego gave a crooked grimace perhaps meant as a smile. "OK, trooper! Fair enough! I take the sofa, and you make nice with Teddy, here. We move out just after dark! Now, get some rest!"

==##0##==

Fifteen minutes later, Kim crept into the living room.

"Shego, I can't sleep! The bear keeps snoring, and he has really bad breath!"

"Oh, for crying out loud! You five years old, or what?"

"Nah, five years olds don't drink whiskey, do they?"

"And you won't either, if I have any say in the matter. All right, come here, then!"

Shego turned over on her side, and Kim lay down beside her. Shego had to wrap her arms around her to keep her from falling off the sofa.

"So, Shego, what's the plan?"

"Well, we lost everything. All our gear, and also the cousin of your kimmunicator. That, unfortunately, means the dark GJ has it."

"A good thing we arranged for coded calls. Wade won't answer it if he isn't sure it's us."

"No, but they'll still suspect we had contact with him, or at least that we tried. I hope he can talk his way out of that trouble in some way. Anyway, we haven't the means to call him and I don't think we should try to contact your uncle or your cousin, either. We've got to get away to regroup and re-equip. And it just so happens that Drakken had a small lair in south-eastern Montana that I think he may have forgotten to tell the authorities about."

"Bless his bad, blue memory!"

"Indeed. Well, we'll take the bike, and hole up there for a while. If we're lucky, there may be some stuff there we can use. And if the installations work, we may even be able to get a secure link to wondergeek from there."

"Good plan, Shego! I'm glad I'm not doing the thinking any more!"

"Well, enjoy it while you can! You'll have to get back into the game sooner or later!"

"Later, please, then!"

==##0##==

Kim Possible slept quietly in the arms of her former arch-nemesis. Shego, however, lay awake, a beehive of buzzing thoughts in her head.

She had not expected this to happen. She never thought she would even hint at her secret feelings for the red-headed hero. But in the moments when she imagined coming out with it, she had imagined other reactions. Either Kim would be horrified and tell her she never wanted to see her ever again. Or else, in her more hopeful dreams, Kim's face would light up with joy and they would fall into each other's arms! But this sort of 'don't know' reaction was frustrating. Would it grow into something? Or would she just be hurt by inevitable rejection in the end? Kim would probably want to try pretending they were like sisters, but Shego wasn't sure she could keep such a relationship, knowing it could never be more. And still, here she was, holding her Princess in her arms, and unable to refrain from enjoying it.

The turmoil of thoughts and feelings was enough to give you a blinding headache. And Pumpkin didn't have the plasma fingers to smooth it all away. Why, oh why, had she let her guard down like this? Why had she allowed her hopes to take control of her mouth?

Shego had a headache. And her secret love in her arms.

==##0##==

A/N. OK, here we go. Some silliness, and some KiGo feelings. Or at least partly, since Kimmie doesn't really know what to think or how to react.

Please read and review if you want more of the story!


	15. Chapter 15

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

"_Still waters run deep."  
_Old English proverb.

**Chapter 15, in which Kim starts a criminal career and takes the plunge. **

Kim Possible was uncertain.

Again, she was resting in the arms of Shego. Mostly, she felt safe. She had developed a sort of trust for Shego. Not just that her former adversary could do what she said she would, or that she would do her best to get them both out of the crap they were in.

Just a few days ago, she had been a bit hesitant about the new, more sensitive aspects of the green virago. Now, she had started trusting Shego to look out for her, even to take care of her.

That wasn't all, though. She had come to understand that there was more to their relationship than that.

Nobody had used any big words like 'love' or 'dating' but it was obvious that Shego was hoping for more than sisterly friendship.

Such developments had turned out badly for Kim before. Ron and her had been best friends for as long as she could remember, and the friendship had survived at least until recently. The period of dating and the boyfriend/girlfriend thing had, however, not gone so well.

It had been an exciting experience with quite a few high points, but it had not lasted. When they had stopped making allowances for their inexperience and their unfamiliarity with the new situation, reality had crept in and dragged them down.

And with Shego, there would be so many obstacles. A huge one was, of course, the fact that Shego wasn't a man. Kim had never felt an interest in anything but boys.

But the unexpected problem was that Shego, that indestructible, sarcastic, violent and confident force of nature, suddenly appeared so vulnerable.

Kim didn't want to hurt her, but she couldn't very well pretend to be interested in taking it further just out of pity.

But Kim Possible was not only uncertain about how to handle the situation. She was also quite unsure about how she felt. Could she have feeling for _Shego_? In all honesty, she didn't know.

Yes, Kim Possible was uncertain.

==##0##==

The motorcycle that Shego had found in the shed was not of any make that Kim could recognise.

It wasn't a chopper or a cross bike, but a medium sized road machine. It had an air-cooled flat twin engine and a drive-shaft instead of a chain drive.

What it mostly had, however, was age.

"Aw, man, another museum piece! An autogyro, a biplane and now this heap of crap!"

"Princess! It's a fine vintage bike in nearly untouched, original condition!"

"Yeah? It's certainly not untouched by rust and pealing paint. I even see it's acquainted with leaking oil and cracking leather! I bet it doesn't even have an internet connection!"

"Internet? Kimmie, you're weird! Don't you have any appreciation of history?"

"Oh, I know history! 1066: battle of Hastings! 1773: Boston tea party! 1907: birth of crappy bike!" Kim made a grand gesture towards their mode of transport.

"Well, Milady is free to choose any other vehicle on display in our luxurious showrooms," Shego said with some acerbity. The 'showrooms' were stuffed full of garden tools, boating accessories and the type of clutter you generally get in garden sheds.

Kim had no comeback to this, and Shego wheeled the bike out, shaking her head. The bike had a long dual saddle but no boxes or racks for luggage. Shego had strapped two small bags on each side of the front wheel, and two larger ones hung like saddle bags on a mule at the rear.

The bike started on the third try, just before Kim opened her mouth for some new unappreciative comment.

Shego handed Kim a roll of blankets with a cloth strap as a handle. "Here, Pumpkin! Put this over your back and get on board!"

Kim sat herself down behind Shego, back straight and hands on the smallish handles at the rear of the saddle.

"Oh, come on! Haven't you ridden a bike before?"

"Yeah, but then I was the driver!"

"Well, lean forward and put your arms around my waist. You'll fall off, sitting like that!"

Kim complied, a bit hesitantly. She had been OK with Shego holding her in her arms, but now, she was sort of hugging Shego, and it felt a bit different.

The unease disappeared quickly, though, as Shego moved off down the rutted access road, and Kim found the need to hold on tight.

==##0##==

After a couple of hours, they reached the town they had been aiming for with the biplane.

Their objectives had changed, though. Then, they had wanted to reach populated areas to avoid being shot right down out of the sky, if the GJ came upon them. Now, they were trying to slink away from the area without being seen.

They decided to stop for the rest of the night and wait for the stores to open.

Kim unslung the roll of blankets from her back and spread them out in the shelter of some bushes on a grassy knoll conveniently close to the northern approach to the town. They huddled up in them without talking, eager to be out of the cold of the wind on the road. The clothes they had found in the cabin were not really the best for biking. Shego had a tattered dark green coat of waxed cotton and Kim had just found an old rain coat.

As usual, Shego held Kim tight, and warmth slowly returned.

==##0##==

Despite the welcome rest, they did not find it easy to doze off. The early birds soon started fighting over the best worms and the ground got harder and harder the longer they lay on it.

Finally, the town looked like waking up, and they started walking in search of breakfast and supplies.

They soon found a large drug-store and convenience shop already open.

Shego didn't want to enter the store. Her skin tone was a bit too noticeable.

"Pumpkin, take the money and get a can of spray-on tan, coffees to go - large _Café Americano_ for me - and some bagels or doughnuts! And a pair of cheap sunglasses!"

"Okey-doke, boss! Coming right up!"

Shego went and sat on a concrete block in the parking lot behind the store.

Kim was soon back, and they had their doughnuts and coffees in silence. Shego then sat back in the early morning sunlight and allowed her Pumpkin to spray fake tan on her face and hands.

"So, how does it look?"

"Kind of bad, actually. But don't worry, it's 'botched-up make-up party' bad, not 'outlaw on the run' bad. Still, I do like the greener shade of pale better!"

"Why Pumpkin, you do know your classics!"

"Whut, now?"

"Or not, as the case may be. OK, sunglasses!"

"Here!"

Shego gasped as her partner in crime proudly displayed her purchase. "Ack! Kimmie! You trying to kill me?"

Kim held a pair of fifties style cat eyes glasses, full with genuine plastic jewellery. "What? I thought you liked vintage stuff?"

"Yeah, cars, bikes, planes, machinery. Not the old fashioned complete lack of taste!"

Kim giggled happily. "Well, don't worry. I told the cashier it was a surprise, and he said I could change them if you didn't like them!"

"Well, run along then like a good little side-kick and get something that won't draw a crowd!"

==##0##==

Once Shego had a discreet pair of pilot style shades on her nose, they walked away down the street, arm in arm, in search of a second hand clothing store.

"Pumpkin, I think you're in serious need of a shrink."

"I am? Why is that?"

"You sure are. And you're in luck: the doctor's in! Want to hear my theory?"

"Something tells me it won't make any difference if I say no?"

"Not one bit! And here it is: I think you've been jealous of the buffoon all you life!"

"What? Jealous of Ron? Whatever for? 'Cause he's a guy?"

"No, because he's the sidekick buffoon! Look what you have been doing the moment I took charge! Writing funny notes, playing with the life-size teddy, frightening me with that horrid fashion accessory. I think you've been longing to be the comic relief all along!"

"Ya think?" Kim didn't look entirely convinced.

"Positive! And it's so adorable!"

"Adorable?" Kim pouted. "Wasn't meant to be."

But Shego only laughed and dragged her possible girlfriend along.

==##0##==

They found a second hand shop and managed to get most of what they needed by relaxing their standards somewhat. Shego found a pair of biker's boots that were only slightly to big, and Kim got herself a pair of sneakers to replace the rubber boots she had been wearing. They got themselves warm jackets and scarves, and Shego found a pair of gloves.

They retired to a cheap diner with their loot and the rest of the money. Shego divided their dollar bills in two heaps and pushed one over to Kim. "Not much, but let's see if we can get ourselves some lunch!"

The waitress walked over with menus. She was a well-muscled woman of about forty with a short, almost boyish haircut.

"So, darlings, what can I get you?"

"Yeah, I'll have the basic burger and fries, please. No side orders. And just tap water to drink."

"Big spender, eh? And you, dear?"

"Well, I'll have the side order of baked beans, please. And can you do me two pieces of toast on a plate? And a glass of orange juice?"

"Pumpkin, what have I said about eating crap like that?"

"But I like it!" Kim whined.

"She's right, you know!" the waitress said. "You need some proteins, too!"

Shego started counting the small change, finally putting a dollar fifty on the table. "Do you think we can we get a rasher of bacon to go with the beans for this?"

"Well, if you promise not to tell my boss, I can even do you a fried egg! Young girl like you; have to eat properly!" The waitress winked at Kim, gave them a bright smile and walked away.

"Well, that sure was a nice lady!"

"Princess, she wasn't nice, she was coming on to you!"

"She was? Why?"

Shego sighed. "Kimmie, she sees us, and she must have seen something more. She was just flirting, hoping to get lucky!"

"Oh!" Kim blushed.

"Don't worry, Cupcake! I won't let her touch you!"

==##0##==

They got their food and started eating. To Shego's amusement, Kim cringed a little when the waitress got to close. "Don't mind her, she's just very shy!" Shego explained as the hamburger was placed on the table in front of her, and Kim blushed even more.

"Now, Princess, eyes front! We must make some plans. That was the last of the money, and we gotta get us some more."

"Okay?"

"Yeah. We got a few options, here, all of them dishonest. We could, say, hold up a liquor store, or we could wait until nightfall and make a break-in somewhere, or…"

"Aw, Sheegsie! I don't wanna do those things!"

"Well, I don't want to do that either. Too risky. We may get noticed, and get the local boys in blue after us, too. So, that's why we'll do it like this instead! Now, listen carefully … "

==##0##==

The town was small, but it had most of the things a bigger place would have. There was a posh shopping district, a few boring blocks of official buildings and offices, an area of nice restaurants and cosy bars, and a bit of inner city rot, decidedly on the wrong side of the tracks.

By three o'clock, Kim and Shego were sitting in a small park outside a run-down school in the latter part of the town. The park was not a very pleasant place and the litter had gathered in drifts around the trash cans. Many of the windows in the school on the other side of the street were broken or boarded up, and every available surface was covered in graffiti. Many of the people in the park looked like drunks and beggars.

Kim and Shego were keeping a sharp lockout, letting their eyes rove unobtrusively over the street life.

"That one!" Shego said eventually, nudging Kim in the side with her elbow.

"You think? How do you know?"

"Just watch him for a while and see what he does!"

Kim did as she was told, watching a young man in his early twenties doing nothing much. There didn't seem to be anything special about him. From time to time, someone would walk up to him and talk for a few minutes. They would shake hands, slap each other's backs, and part ways.

Once, though, Kim thought she may have seen money changing hands.

"OK, if you're sure. So what do we do?"

"Well, you just walk up and distract him, and I'll take care of the rest. And, please, Princess, don't pull any corny stuff, pretending to be in a bad gangster movie or something!"

Kim made an innocent face and got up from the bench.

"Hey," she said, walking up to the young man. "You got anything?"

"Maybe. How much you want?"

"Weeell, you know, depends on the cost a bit…"

"Small packet of X, fifty bucks. Locoweed, the same."

"Oh! Well, how much could you let me have for, say six fifty?"

"You funny in the head or somethin'? You pay, or you walk away!"

"But that's all I have!"

"You stupid white trash! You wastin' my time, here!"

At that moment, Shego appeared behind the small time pusher, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck. "That ain't all we'll be wasting if you don't do as we tell you!" she said in a menacing whisper.

The dealer whipped his right hand out of his pocket and started to turn around. Kim, however, gave him a sharp chop over the elbow. A small knife dropped to the ground.

"Now, did I tell you to do that? Wait for instructions before you move again!" Shego twisted his arm up behind his back in a way that must have been extremely painful.

"So, all your money to my girlfriend, here, all your merchandise on the ground. _Now_!"

The punk went very pale as Shego twisted his arm some more, but made no move to comply.

"Princess, he ain't co-operating! What do you think I should do?"

Kim leaned forward with an insane smile, getting in the drug dealer's face. "Why, darling, I think you should _hurt _him!"

"Good idea, Pumpkin!"

"No, wait!" The young man was suddenly eager to please. "Just wait a bit. Here, left jacket pocket!"

Kim reached into the jacket and withdrew a large wad of notes.

"… and the stuff's in the other one!"

Kim gave a fistful of small plastic bags to Shego.

"See, that wasn't so difficult, now, was it? Good boy!"

"We gonna get you for this! I have friends, I do!"

"Oh, scary!" Kim said, smiling happily and stuffing the money in the pockets of her jeans.

The small-fry pusher was about to say something more, but got distracted by Shego, who had set fire to a trash can with her free hand, and was now feeding the drugs into the merry bonfire.

"Man, you _insane_? That's perfectly good stuff, that was!"

"Oh, I doubt very much it was good, punk! I think it was very inferior grade and that I'm doing your customers a favour getting it out of the market!"

"Aw, don't be sad, kid!" Kim said. "Pleasure doing business with you!"

With that, the two women quickly disappeared from the scene, just as the local police cruiser pulled up, curious as to the cause of the strange-smelling smoke.

==##0##==

"If that's crime, I could grow to like it!" Kim said as they walked quickly out of town.

"Yeah, we could have done a good deed, there, getting rid of that bad dope! And best of all, he ain't very likely to send the law after us!"

"I think the best of all was the faces he made as he realised he had to think of something to say to the cops!"

"Yeah, now that his drug-dealing career is a bust, he could have a bright future as a comedy actor! So, anyway, how much did we get?"

"It's almost like hero work, stopping a little twerp like that!"

"Oh, don't fool yourself, now, Princess. You're a criminal, all right. Robbery, theft, incineration of hazardous waste without a clearance from the EPA, and destruction of evidence relating to the federal offence of drug-dealing! You're in deep shit, girlie!"

Kim stuck out her tongue at Shego, and started counting the money instead. She whistled softly to herself. "I guess he wasn't such a small-time pusher after all!"

"Oh, nice! He must have had a busy day before we took him down! Well, be happy! This night, I'm gonna treat you to a night at the sleaziest motel I can find!"

"Oh, Shego! You're such a romantic!"

==##0##==

Shego was a woman of her word, and the motel she found made the Crossroad's look like the Paris Hilton by comparison.

They got themselves a three bucket room. Two of the buckets were for the leaking roof, and the third was for flushing the broken toilet with water from the shower. And that was the limit of what you really wanted to be doing with the shower, anyway. The layers of grime had probably been allowed to accumulate at the request of the cockroaches and spiders, who were, after all, the most frequent guests in the room;.

The furniture was mismatched and broken, the mattress of the queen-sized bed was lumpy, and there were cigarette burns on all the sheets.

"Wow! Lucky we ate, already! I don't think room service here offers much in terms of caviare and champagne!"

"You want bubbly, Princess? I thought you'd be happy with just my company!"

"I'll be happy with just a good night's rest, I think."

"Well, dang it, there goes my plans for the evening!" Shego said with exaggerated wigglings of her eyebrows.

Kim wandered off into the bathroom to brush her teeth and get ready for the night. "Shego, we didn't get any nightdresses! And we forgot to buy underwear!"

"Ah, yes, OK, I may have other ways of keeping you warm at night!"

Kim sighed. "Shego, please don't come on so desperately! Let's just sleep!"

"Right. OK. I'll behave."

Kim went to bed and drew the blankets up to her chin. Shego joined her, and they put out the lights in silence. After a while, though, Kim turned on her side and propped herself up on her elbow.

"Shego, may I ask you something?"

"Sure!"

"Shego, what's you name?"

"What's my name? What's wrong with Shego?"

"No, your real name. Will Du called you Miss McGowan, didn't he?"

"Yeah, what're you asking for, then?"

"The whole name, please, Shego!"

Deep sigh. "Ok! If you must know. It _is_ McGowan. Siobhán McGowan."

"Shewann?"

"No, Siobhán. S-i-o-b-h-a-n. It's Irish. A variant of Joan, actually."

"Irish? Really? Wouldn't have guessed that!"

"'S true! Family moved over here, to Go City, when I was three years old. The twins were born right in Go City, but the rest of us are imports!"

"I'd have thought you looked more … Mediterranean, like? Or perhaps Latin American? Is it all due to the comet?"

"No, that's just the inner beauty of my appealing personality shining through!"

"You know, Shego, just a few weeks ago I'd have laughed myself silly at that line!"

"So, what happened? Loose your sense of humour?"

"You're just gonna bop me on the nose again if I tell you why ..."

"You learn fast, at least."

"So, anyway, can I call you Shiv, or something, now?"

"No, Kimmie. Bop on the nose, remember?"

"Aw ... I'll just stick with Dolly, then!"

"Aargh!"

==##0##==

The next day's travel went smoothly. They had money, now, and could eat at roadside diners, as well as buy snacks and sodas at the gas stations.

They stopped at a supermarket and got some underwear and other necessities. Kim also bought a pair of pink pyjamas with 'Hello Kitty' pictures on them. Shego rolled her eyes and bought green t-shirts and black shorts.

Yes, everything went smoothly. Kim was a bit worried about Shego, though. She could see that the other woman was nervous and a bit frustrated, and she could guess why.

Shego was trying her very best not to scare her off, but must have been under quite considerable pressure since confessing her feelings towards the red-headed heroine. It was probably difficult to be so close to temptation and not doing anything. Or, at least, so Kim guessed.

She could see, however, that Shego was not going to do anything about it. She was too scared of ruining it all.

It was driving Kim crazy. She didn't know what was happening, or where they stood with each other, and that was frustrating.

That night, when Kim went to bed in her 'Hello Kitties', she started thinking that she should perhaps do something about it.

She looked at Shego, who had sunk back into the pillows, and was pretending to be asleep. What would it feel like, kissing a girl? What would it be like, kissing Siobhán McGowan?

She had to admit that Shego looked beautiful. Her face had a sort of classic beauty and her eyes were stunning. Her skin was smooth and soft, without a single blemish, and the pale greenish colour was awesome when not covered in artificial sun tan.

The lips were dark and full. They weren't black; that was due to the lipstick that Shego usually wore, but they were a very dark green.

Well, if she were to find out what it was like, she would probably have to do something about it herself. She leaned forward slowly and …

==##0##==

… and five miutes later, she was sitting up in bed, totally stupified!

"Shego, what the fuck was _that_?!"

Shego had crept up towards the headboard of the bed, and was looking extremely rattled.

"Princess, I'm so sorry! So very, very sorry!"

"Never mind sorry, damn you, _what was it_?"

Shego drew a ragged breath. "Well, you know … I have pretty good control of my powers, right? I can use them for everything from cutting steel and welding to throwing great big balls of fire and super-powering my punches. Right?"

Kim nodded, still dazed.

"Well, the important word here is control. As in, what happens when I loose it? Kim, I lost it. The emotions that came with your kiss were … amazing. What happened was … like … the spontaneous reactions of my comet powers to … well, you!"

"Jesus Christ! You could have fried me to cinders!"

"Eh, no, that wouldn't happen. The … manifestations … are not dangerous unless I feel threatened or become angry. And, believe me, I wasn't angry."

"So, flashes, fireworks, electric sparks and all, that was just you being … happy to see me?"

"Yeah, sort of... "

"Well, that was quite … intense. Electrifying, even. Freak-out, much, for your boyfriends?"

"Well, yeah. Most of them haven't lasted more than one date. Heck, half of them don't make it to second base!"

"Uh-huh! Aren't there some that find it ... exciting?"

"Well, there was this one guy. He seemed fine with it for a while. Then he went and said something stupid."

"Like what?"

Shego ducked her head and continued in a hesitant voice. "He said I was his … pin-ball machine."

"Pin-ball?"

"Yeah, he said he shot his balls, and I would light up and flash just like a pin-ball machine ..."

Kim fought a losing battle to keep her face straight. "And at which cemetery is his final resting place?"

"No, he survived. Just four weeks in the ICU. But … the tenderness was sort of gone from the relationship ..."

Kim lost it, laughed until she was in danger of suffocating, and fell out of bed.

"Poor, poor, Siobhán!" she said from her place on the floor. "So, were girls any easier?"

"A bit, but not much."

Kim crawled back up into the bed and laid her head down on the pillow close to Shego.

"And does this happen every time?"

"Pretty much. When it's good."

"OK, then I have only one more question. If this was what came from just a kiss, what happens when you … you know? … peak?"

"Well, not all that easy to describe, you know … ?"

Kim rolled over, put her hands on either side of Shego's shoulders and leaned forward.

"How about you show me?" she whispered with a smile.

==##0##==

Twenty minutes later, the fire alarm went off and the sprinkler system showered the room in cold water.

==##0##==

A/N. OK! Mostly fluff, but something happened at the end. I hope you're not too shocked. I'm a bit unsure about how to handle the more ... intimate … issues.

Anyway, this chapter is dedicated to stopping Bri from crying! Hope it succeded!

The classic song that Shego thought Kim might have been referring to is "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Gary Brooker, Matthew Fisher and Keith Reid, from the 1967 debut album of the group "Procol Harum".

The bike might be a 1967 BMW R60/2, if anyone cares.

Please read and review if you want more of the story!


	16. Chapter 16

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

"_Once a woman has given you her heart, you can never get rid of the __rest__ of her._"  
Sir John Vanbrugh, English playwright, 1664 – 1726.

**Chapter 16, which mainly contains not much at all. **

Kim Possible was totally astonished.

She had wanted to find out what it would feel like to kiss Shego, and she had been surprised, amazed and astonished. She had been startled and stupefied.

She had also been very wet. Wet and cold, but strangely elated.

She had gotten an answer to her question. The question, now, was: what did it all mean?

==##0##==

Kim had also had some explaining to do, and not much time to think about it.

She had drawn a large towel around herself and gone to answer the door.

The night portiere had been pounding on it for some time, and he hadn't looked happy when she opened the door.

"What the fuck are you doing? You wanna burn the place down?"

"Ah, good … morning, is it? Actually we haven't done anything! We just got the surprise of our lives when the water started coming down! Must've been a short-circuit or something!"

"The hell it was! You were burning something, smoking something, I bet!"

Shego had come to the rescue, also wrapped in a towel.

"Hey, a little less confrontation, here! We were just sleeping soundly in the bed when this shit went down, and I'm thinking you should perhaps be apologising? To us? Asking if you can help? Giving us another room, at the least?"

The night man had looked at her in consternation. Some of it had perhaps been due to the fact that the fake tan wasn't entirely water-proof, but he had also had to wrestle his mind around the fact that he had perhaps been in the wrong, here.

"Eh ... all right. It's just, we've had a few problems with people smoking all kinds of things, and doing whatever in the rooms … "

"Trust me, we were not doing 'whatever', and we'd like a dry room _now_, please!"

"Yeah, I'll see what I can do. You get your stuff together, and I'll be back with another key for you."

==##0##==

Once installed in the new room, they had gone back to the bed, said goodnight, and attempted to go to sleep.

Kim had not been able to stop herself thinking, though. She had needed to figure a few things out.

She had been very aware that she still didn't know how it would feel to kiss a woman. She only knew what happened when she kissed Shego. And that had been quite spectacular.

There was no doubt that Shego had appreciated the attention Kim had, albeit a bit hesitantly, shown her. The thing went both ways, however. The sort of electrical charges and sparks that enveloped the comet-powered woman had also had quite an effect on Kim. There were also sensations of heat that seemed to embrace them both, and a strange sense of power that had permeated Kim to the very bones.

It had all been very intense, and just short of painful. She had never felt anything like it before.

Did she want to feel it again? Maybe. Or rather, yes, she did, although she still had reservations about the girl/girl thing.

She had been feeling some regret about her previous actions. It had been a spur of the moment thing to take the initiative and get back into kissing Shego. She had been curious, and it had felt right, then, but the memories of what they had done made her quite uncomfortable, now.

Why was nothing ever easy?

And why didn't she even understand what her own feelings were?

==##0##==

In the morning, they had packed their stuff, some of it still wet, and made an early start.

They had had coffee and doughnuts at a gas station, and stopped for lunch at a burger place. Shego had thought they were getting close to the abandoned lair they were looking for, and had wanted to stop for a few purchases.

"You _think_ we're getting close? Don't you know where it is?"

"Well, we always used to go there by hoverpod, and I'd just have to feed the coordinates into the navigation system. I've never gone there by road, before."

"Oh, jippee!"

"Well, I have taken a car _out _of the lair, though, to go shopping in the nearest town. So when we get real close, I'll know my way!"

"So, we'll just have to visit every small town in Eastern Montana until you recognise the shop you used to go to?"

"I'm hoping it won't come to that." Shego had put a road map on the table between them among the burgers and fries. "See, I'm kind of hoping it might be this one!"

Kim had craned her neck in an effort to read the name of the town, even though the map had been upside down from her side of the table. "Yucksville, Montana? Really?"

"Yeah, sorry, it's not the most sophisticated place I've ever been..."

"If that's the place, how could you ever forget the name of it? Kind of sticks in your mind, know what I mean?"

"Well, as I said, I think that's the place. Just not 100% sure …"

"OK. So it has a general store, or something?"

"It's not that small! It has a supermarket of sorts... "

==##0##==

Luckily, Yucksville _was _the place Shego remembered. They bought a rucksack for Kim to wear, and filled it with food and drink and other items of necessity, like a roll of toilet paper. Shego got a smaller bag that she could carry across her knees while driving the bike. This one, she filled with chocolate bars, snacks and beer. And one bottle of Jack Daniel's whiskey.

"This one is mine, Pumpkin! You stick to water!"

"Well, as long as you don't try to feed me porridge ..."

Heading out of town, Shego was sure of the way to take, and they soon found a narrow track that led off the road and up into slightly more hilly country.

The countryside was mostly wide open rolling grasslands around Yucksville, but the farther they went, the higher the hills. After about an hour of driving, they began to see bare rock and cliffs peeking through the gentle grass, and a bit further along they came to what could only be called small mountains.

Finally, they saw a greyish rock that had been carved by wind and water until it resembled a medieval fortification of the more impregnable kind. There was little indication from the outside, however, that it actually _was_ a stronghold, albeit of much later design.

Shego left the trail and drove up on the scree by the base of the cliffs.

"Well, Princess, here we are! Help me open the door, will you?"

Together they approached a nearly vertical part of the cliff. Shego felt around the edges of one of the many fissures in the rock, and pulled some hidden lever.

"Now, push!"

The stone was balanced in some way so that it was possible to push it inwards and open a doorway. Being made of rock, however, it was very heavy and it took some effort to get a big enough opening for them to enter.

"Come on, Pumpkin! We'll get the bike later, when we have got the power going and can open the big doors to the vehicle bay!"

They walked along a short tunnel until they came to a circular stairway descending into the darkness of the mountain lair. Shego switched on a flashlight she had bought at the supermarket, and led the way.

After a few turns they came out in a large room. The walls were partly concrete, but the living rock intruded at many places. The air smelled cold and damp. The floor was covered in a thin layer of dark grey dust. It looked almost as if someone had made the rounds with a giant pepper mill and put an even layer of ground black pepper everywhere.

A couple of bulky objects covered in tarpaulins emerged from the gloom. Shego ducked her head and looked under the coverings of the largest object.

"Ha! A full-size hoverpod with the covered cabin! If we can get it powered up, we'll have all we need for transportation!"

The other tarpaulins turned out to hide a small truck and a SUV, respectively.

"Now, for some light!" Shego said and opened a door in the back of the room.

The flashlight revealed a largish diesel generator. Shego threw a few levers and put her finger on a big green switch. "Cross your fingers and hope we have juice enough in the batteries to crank this baby!" she said.

To their relief, Drakken's design was sound, and the big engine rumbled to life. Shego pushed some buttons on another control board, and lights blinked on all around them. The fans of the ventilation system also woke to life.

They went back out in the vehicle bay and Shego found the switch that opened the doors.

"Yes! Good old Dr. D! Some of the things he builds actually work!"

Shego drove the bike inside, and they carried all the luggage down to the main level of the lair.

The light was already on there, too, and they could see furniture and equipment covered in protective plastic sheets. The same dark grey dust covered everything also at this level, but they could see no signs of major damage.

"Kimmie, why don't you go exploring a bit, and I'll start the main systems from the control room up there?"

"So the diesel generator wasn't it?"

"No, that's just the APU; the Auxiliary Power Unit. The main supply is from geothermal heat and some pretty big Stirling engines."

"Cool! Can I see them?"

"No, the machinery itself is quite a far way further down. Up here, we just have the controls."

Kim didn't want to explore by herself, and followed Shego into a another large hall. She helped remove the dust covers from a big console in the middle of the room. Shego booted the computer system, and entered a sequence of commands on a keyboard. Nothing much happened, but a number indicators started lighting up.

"That's it. It isn't more spectacular than that. The diesel will power down as soon as the Stirlings pick up the load."

"Pretty neat! Why don't we have that sort of stuff at home?"

"Well, it's pretty damn expensive, for one thing. Doesn't matter when you steal it, of course, but if you have to pay ..." Shego shrugged. Then she went over to another console. "Hey, Firefox! I think you'll love this one!"

She threw a few switches and a small army of robot vacuum cleaners emerged from a hatch in the wall. They immediately started cleaning the floors with a happy whirring sound and small beeps every time they changed directions.

"Oh, Shego! I want some of those, too!" Kim exclaimed excitedly.

"Yeah, sorry, pretty damn expensive system, them too. I can steal you some later, maybe!"

==##0##==

Shego took Kim on a tour for the lair. There was a large common room that reminded Kim of the lounge of a more up-market hotel. At one end, there were a couple of broad steps that led up to a coffee table and some easy chairs overlooking the only windows in the lair.

"These are set quite far back into a natural crevice, and tilted so they'll give no reflections," Shego explained. "They are also one-way glass, so the neighbours won't see if you dance around naked in here."

"That's fine, but I hadn't planned on doing much dancing!"

"You never know! That's quite a nice HiFi-set down there..."

The kitchen was large and well equipped. There was a small cosy breakfast nook, as well as some bigger cafeteria style tables and chairs.

One of the doors in the common room led off to a room that was like a cross between an office and a laboratory. "Drakken's play room." Shego commented.

There were also three doors that led to bedrooms. One was painted green and another was light blue. The third was larger and filled with bunk beds and metal cabinets.

Kim got a bit hesitant. "So, how do you want the ... sleeping arrangements?"

Shego sighed. "Look, I'm not stupid. I can see that you're not all that happy with what happened last night."

Kim nodded. "I don't ... regret it, actually, but I'm not sure it was a very good idea, is all!"

"Well, Princess, I'm gonna take my bed. If you want to Dr. D's, go right ahead."

Kim hesitated. "Drakken's? Ew."

"Yeah, if you are more upset by the Dr., even though he isn't actually here, you are welcome to share my room. Look, do you trust me?"

"Yeah, I think so?"

"Well, come on, then. I promise I won't do anything. I'd just appreciate if you ... didn't shut me out!"

Kim nodded.

==##0##==

They spent a couple of hours removing the plastic covers from everything, and cleaning everywhere that the vacuum droids didn't reach. They stacked their food in the kitchen, and made the bed.

While Shego tinkered with the communication equipment in the main control room, Kim cooked dinner. It was mostly a case of heating stuff up, as they had Chilli con Carne together with some fresh bread. There were small helpings of salad, and both Kim and Shego had some beer. To top it off, here was some ready-made Crème caramel for dessert.

"Thanks, Princess. That was nice! I could make a good house-wife out of you, yet!"

Kim stuck out her tongue.

"Come on, now! Let's see of we can reach the King of Nerds!"

"You sure this will not be traced?" Kim asked as Shego started working with the radio.

"I'm sure. Your geek is good, but I know a thing or two, also. And Drakken likes to put a lot of fancy gadgets in his lairs, so we have what we need!"

She pressed a switch under a swan-neck microphone and gave their call sign. "Green alpha to Toad-in-the-Hole! Toad, come in!"

She had to repeat it a few times, but eventually a familiar voice answered. "Green alpha, are we secure?"

"Affirmative, Toad! All secure! We are encrypted and bounced off so many satellites, my sentences should arrive backwards!"

"Eh ... in that case, you must be using grammar like Yoda the Jedi! But nice to hear from you, anyway! What's up?"

They filled Wade in on what had happened and what they had learned. He, in turn, related some of his observations.

"Yes, there was a sudden surge of air traffic around the area you were headed for yesterday. Later, there were reports of a forest fire, or perhaps an explosion or something. There were some speculation about a plane crash, but then it all went quiet. I guess they cut their losses, blew the base, and evacuated."

"Sounds likely, Toad!"

"I'm thinking you are way too much fond of that call sign. Next time, I'll pick the code-words!"

"Nah, I like it this way! Anyway, any suggestions? What should we do?"

"Well, if it's all down to GJ gone bad, I think you need some insider help. And I think I know just the woman for the job!"

"Really? I didn't think you knew any women besides Joss?"

"You'd be surprised. Well, I'm thinking of someone who should know a lot about the workings of the GJ, and would not be sympathetic to the new management!"

"Hey, Kim! That must be the girl in the control room that stripped for you!"

Kim gave Shego an angry look and poked her in the ribs.

"Well, that must be one of the few women I _don't _know. No, I was thinking Dr. Elisabeth Director."

"Yeah, smart! Betsy would probably want to help. But where is she? Is she even alive?"

"Oh, I think she's alive. I think she would still know stuff that the new GJ would want to know! And if that's the case, there is really only one place she can be."

"I know!" Kim said. "The maximum security detention facility the GJ built a couple of years ago!"

"Yeah, that's what I think! They built it during Dr. Director's time in office, but never really used it much. I'm guessing it's pretty full, now, and that Betty is one of the VIP inmates!"

"And you think she would know something useful?" Kim asked.

"Yeah, I bet the new GJ wasn't built in a day. I bet Dr. Director knows a lot about how it came about, up till the moment she was put out to pasture. Or perhaps she tried to resign. That would not have been accepted, I think. People _in _an organisation like the covert GJ need to be loyal, and people _outside_ need to ... taken care off!"

"And you know something about this facility, do you?"

"Sure! It was built well before the GJ made the swap from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. I have it hacked good!"

"Toad, we have a plan!!"

==##0##==

Kim and Shego retired to the bedroom soon afterwards. They were booth rather tired.

Shego went out of her way to give Kim some space, and made sure she didn't intrude on the other woman's personal space.

They got into bed from opposite sides, and left a few hand-spans of no-mans-land in between.

"Princess?"

"Yeah?"

"I like the sight of your red hair on my green pillows. I do! But don't take this wrong – the pink 'Hello Kitty' really clashes with the colour scheme! I whish you'd get rid of it!"

The blond hair-dye that Kim had used at the Crossroad's Motel had all but faded away and she was almost her own, bright red again. It went rather well with the pale green of the linen in the bed. And even though she did like 'Hello Kitty', she could understand that the colours didn't really match.

"Well, lend me one of your green tees and shorts tomorrow, and we'll see!" she said, trying to be accommodating.

"Good! And, ... Kimmie?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for keeping me company!"

Kim thought for a while. "Aw, come here, you!" she finally said, and rolled over so that Shego could hold her in her arms again. "But just the cuddling! No more!"

==##0##==

Kim Possible was still astonished. Now, it was not about the shock she had gotten from the strange fireworks that resulted from kissing Shego.

No, now she was mostly astonished to find that she actually really liked lying in Shego's arms.

==##0##==

A/N. So, not much happened in this chapter. But, OK, they must prepare a bit before they're up for more action. Which will shortly be forthcoming!

'Toad in the hole' is a traditional English dish of sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter. Itäs actually surprisingly tasty.

Please read and review if you want more of the story!


	17. Chapter 17

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

"_If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence."_  
Charles Bukowski, 1929 - 1994

**Chapter seventeen, in which someone obtains a get-out-of-jail card. **

Dr. Elisabeth Director knew where she was.

She new precisely what kind of installation it was, and the exact location, and she knew that she would rather be anywhere else in the world.

Granted, objectively speaking, there were perhaps worse places. The Bangkok Hilton prison, for instance, or the prison camp of some ruthless guerrilla movement in the more unstable regions of the world. In this case, however, you had to factor in the history of the place, and its personal connection to Dr. Director.

The Global Justice High Security Detention Facility (the GJ-HSDF) had been built on the orders of Dr. Director. She had approved the plans and authorized the appropriations. She had monitored the progress and signed off the delivery. It was entirely on her decision and responsibility the construction had been undertaken.

And now she was its most high-profile inmate.

It would have been easier if the reason was that she had committed some serious crime; that she had turned antisocial or evil.

However, the exact opposite was true. She was incarcerated in the facility because of her high standards and her refusal to go along with the new standard operating procedures of the reorganised Global Justice.

Oh, she had tried to be flexible. She had not protested the new policy of 'Active Provocation' to catch prospective criminals. As long as the GJ had good intelligence, she had felt that this could be used with care in situations where no other options were viable.

She had not opposed the new instructions on 'Shoot to Kill', either. She had lost enough good agents because the criminals were quicker to resort to lethal violence than the forces of the law.

The new doctrine of 'Active Stabilisation', though, had been too much.

Active Stabilisation meant that people and organisations that were in some way potentially troublesome would be opposed, hindered or even removed. The definition of 'troublesome' was very flexible. It soon included civil rights advocates, environmentalists, peace activists and even consumer's rights organisations. Innocent people were hurt, financially ruined, or even killed because the Board of Governors decided society had a chance of being more stable without their influence.

Dr. Director had decided to issue an ultimatum. Either the practice was discontinued, or she would resign.

It was quickly apparent, though, that she had misjudged the situation, and she found another dubious change in the standard procedure of the organisation. The Active Stabilisation practice was retained, but she was not allowed to resign. The GJ didn't let people that could be useful leave. Neither did they let people that could cause trouble have their freedom.

Dr. Director, or rather her memory and experience of past operations, was useful. Her potential criticism of the GJ would be trouble.

So here she was, guest of honour in the detention facility she had herself ordered to be built.

Betty Director knew where she was, all right. And she had no illusions of ever getting out of there.

==##0##==

The mesa where the HSDF had been built was a place of extremes. When it was cold, it was bitterly cold. On cloudless summer days, however, the temperature would reach sauna levels. Mostly, it was a dry and arid region, but from time to time, violent thunderstorms would gather and inundate the landscape, creating temporary rivers and small lakes.

At the moment, it seemed likely that such a storm could be forming.

==##0##==

The flying machine hovering above the GJ-HSDF looked like the popular conception of a flying saucer.

Since it had approached at extremely high altitude, so high that the occupants had been forced to use oxygen masks, it had gone undetected by the radar systems of the facility.

When it descended, it maintained its position directly above the radar installations of the prison. Any echo would have been straight on top pf the centre of the sweep on the radar screens, and thus still undetectable.

Now, it hovered just inside the cloud cover of the overcast sky, invisible both to the instruments and eyes of the personnel on the ground.

Inside, Kim Possible and Siobhán McGowan, otherwise better known as Shego, prepared for their chosen mission. It had to be an extremely quick and synchronized operation if it was to have any chances of success, and the plan had been timed in the smallest detail.

Kim was ready to go, the usual mission excitement flowing through her body. Shego seemed calmer, but was nonetheless somewhat on edge.

In preparation for the mission, quite a few modifications had been made to Dr. Drakken's standard hoverpod design.

There was a large winch mounted in the middle of the circular cabin, just over a hatch in the floor. There was a large ion cannon mounted on the underside of the craft, and laser guns were mounted on the leading edge of the machine. A large silver sphere connected to a bus bar had been installed just to the left of the flight controls. A number of extra instruments and navigation computers had been added.

It had taken a couple of days, but it was all coming together now, in this instant on the cusp of success or failure.

Shego looked at her watch and gave Kim quick pat on the shoulder as a signal to go. They both burst into swift but unhurried motion.

While Kim attached the cable on the winch to her modified parachute harness, Shego powered up the ion cannon, starting to build up a charge on the aerials and radar equipment on the control tower at the centre of the HSDF. She added her own considerable powers through the silver sphere, and when a sufficient potential had developed, a combined lightning and plasma charge struck the control centre of the installation.

As soon as the lightning had struck, Kim started dropping out of the pod at the end of the cable, while Shego let the flying machine drop like a stone.

They reckoned they had a few seconds to get close to the ground before the guards got their wits and their sight back.

==##0##==

The GJ-HSDF was built on top of the flat mesa. The layout was square, and looked somewhat like an old Roman style fortified camp.

There were three lines of steel fences around the facility, and the gaps in between were filled with coils of barbed wire, ditches and other obstacles. Inside the third fence, there was a stone wall with machine gun emplacements at each corner. These also held anti-aircraft guns.

The prison itself consisted of a five by five grid of thick-walled, square stone huts. Where the centre hut should have been, there was a larger building with what had looked like a low air traffic control tower on the roof. By now, however, it looked more like the smoking wreckage of a burned-out oil rig.

Kim could see all this quite clearly as she rushed towards the ground with the combined speed of her descent along the cable and the plunging hoverpod.

==##0##==

The roofs of all the buildings were flat, and guards regularly patrolled along the edges.

No guards were paying much attention at the moment, though. The few who had been on the roofs of the adjoining huts had been knocked flat by the slightly green-tinted lightning strike, and the ones on the central building roof were considerably worse off.

The guards inside the control tower had been saved from electrocution by the metal skeleton of the command centre, acting like a sort of Faraday cage, but a fire had broken out and they were all busy escaping the flames.

Kim dropped to the roof and detached herself from the cable, crouching low so as to be less visible from the other buildings. There were four guards around the ruined structure of the control tower, and Kim quickly took them out with precise hits at well chosen nerve centres. Being Kim Possible, she then dragged them a safe distance away from the burning ruin of the tower.

She then drew a laser measuring device out of a pocket on her harness and started establishing her exact position on the roof.

Meanwhile, Shego used the ion cannon and her plasma powers to take out the gun emplacements one by one. It was somewhat harrowing work, since it took a few seconds for a big enough charge to build up, and she could only direct her lightning strikes at one target at a time.

The guards in the two last corner turrets actually had time to spot the pod, and one of the crews opened fire with the anti-aircraft gun. Before they had gotten their aim right, however, the gunners could feel the electric charge building up and realised what was about to happen . They all threw themselves out of the tower just instants before the last bolt of lightning reduced it to rubble. The ammunition in the breach of the gun went off, adding to the destruction.

==##0##==

Kim had now found the exact spot where she needed to be, and switched her laser tool to cutting mode.

She could see that all the four observation posts on the walls had been taken out, and was relieved that the only danger now was from small arms fire from the ground, or from someone actually climbing on to the roof itself. The main access was through the control tower, and that was blocked by the fire. There was, however, still a risk that some enterprising soul would climb up the walls with an ordinary ladder, and Kim worked as quickly as she could.

She made a hole in the roof and inserted a rod-like handle with a set of spring loaded barbs and hooks. She then inserted a crossbar into a slot in the handle and started making a circular cut in the roof around it.

A round, hatch-like opening was quickly made. The crossbar through the handle stopped the loose bit of roof from crashing down into the building, and made it possible for Kim to lift it out of the way.

She dropped inside; satisfied that she had ended up where she had planned to be.

She found herself crouching on the roof of a cell that was built like a small building inside the bigger one. It stood on pillars and was surrounded on all sides by open space. There were catwalks along the inner walls of the outer building to allow the guards to monitor all the surfaces of the inner cell.

The outer surfaces of the cell were made from stainless steel. Kim set her laser cutter to higher power, and mounted it on a tripod contraption she assembled from parts in her various pockets. As soon as the gadget was in operation, automatically cutting another circular hole, she took out a handful of miniature gas grenades and threw them at strategical locations within the building. Placing a small breathing apparatus in her mouth, she was herself safe from the knock-out effects of the gas.

The gas grenades were small and did not fill the entire space within the building with gas. When a guard who had escaped the immediate effects made it up onto the catwalk at the roof level of the inner cell, Kim had to do a couple of forward flips and take him out with a kick to the jaw. He didn't have time to fire a single shot from his sidearm, though, and he was soon laid out in all his length on the metal gratings of the walkway.

==##0##==

While Kim cut her way inside the main cell in the central building, where they hoped the GJ was keeping Dr. Director, Shego took the hoverpod lower. She used the smaller laser cannons to keep the more enterprising GJ agents that had gotten hold of portable rocket launchers from getting a clear shots at the building or the pod, while staying out of range of the small-arms fire the more mindlessly enthusiastic guards kept up.

She hoped to force the GJ to back up far enough so that the pick-up of Kimmie and Betty would not draw too much fire.

==##0##==

The stainless steel plug fell inside the cell. Kim leaned forward, trying to look inside.

"Dr. Director?" she asked quietly.

"Who … who's there?"

"It's me, Kim Possible. We're going to get you out of there!"

"Kim?"

"Here, grab this!" Kim fastened a small rope ladder to the tripod of the cutting tool and let one end down into the cell. "And breath through this!" She threw another breathing apparatus down to the one-eyed woman inside the cell.

It took longer than it should have done, but eventually Dr. Director managed to climb out of the cell.

"Kim! It really is you! But … how are we going to get away?"

"We have transport. Just follow me!" Kim grabbed the tripod and the rope ladder and hurled them up through the next hole. She easily jumped up, caught the edge of the hole, and pulled herself through. The rope ladder went down again for Betty Director.

The moment Shego saw Kim on the roof again, she swept down to land the hoverpod on the roof. In just a few seconds, both Kim and the former leader of the GJ were inside the pod. It took of with the speed of an express elevator among the pings and cracks of pistol fire.

They had managed to gain a fair bit of altitude before one of the guards managed to use the hand-held rocket launcher he had obtained. Shego had, however, expected something like this and saw it coming, lying on her stomach and looking down through the access hatch in the floor. The payload of the rocket and the green plasma of the super-powered woman combined to make a spectacular explosion in mid-air below the escaping hoverpod. Before the air was clear again, the flying machine had disappeared inside the cloud cover.

They had gotten the most well guarded prisoner out from under the very noses of Global Justice.

"Booyah!"

==##0##==

Dr. Director was in bad shape.

She had been kept inside the stainless steel box in the central building of the detention facility for more than half a year without any chance of exercise and without even once seeing the light of day.

There had been no windows, and only a small slot in the door through which food, clothes and other necessities had been passed.

She had not met a single human being face to face, but talked to her jailers using a small speaker-phone set into the wall.

The short climbs and the excitement of the escape had totally exhausted her, and she lay panting on the floor of the hoverpod as Shego rose to grab the controls and Kim shut the hatch in the floor.

She rolled over and propped herself up against a seat in the back of the hoverpod cabin.

"Kim?" she said, hesitantly. "And … Shego?"

Shego's hair had grown back so that it now reached her shoulders, and she had found one of her beloved green-and-black cat-suits at the lair. She was once again easily recognisable

"Yep! That's us! Your very own guardian angels!"

Betty Director broke down and cried.

==##0##==

The trip back to the lair was long and uneventful.

After a while, Dr. Director stopped crying.

"Girls." she said, "do you know how much trouble you have gotten into, here? Do you really know what you have done? The Global Justice does not play nice, anymore!"

"Oh, we know!" Kim said. " Believe us, we found that out the hard way! And we haven't gotten into trouble by rescuing you. We were already deep in the shit, and you are our main ticket out of it!"

"Oh? How do you figure that?"

"We'll talk about that when we are safely back at our hiding place, and you have rested up a bit. Just relax, now, we have everything under control!"

The rescued prisoner sat back in the seat and sighed. "All right! I guess I can do that!"

Kim crawled forwards and sat in the co-pilot's seat, beside Shego.

"So, Sheegs! That went OK, didn't it? Do you think there were any … fatalities?"

"Yeah, went as planned! Casualties? I honestly don't know. The guys in the control tower made it, didn't they? A bit of a barbeque, but mostly all right? I saw guards jumping out of all the watch tower before the lightning struck, so with a bit of luck they should also be OK. It's a good thing the build-up of the charge is so obvious ..."

"Yeah, when your hair stands straight up, you know something's up!"

"And I didn't shoot directly at anyone. Did you?"

"Nope! Just used the gas grenades. And my hands."

"OK, so we should be good. Happy?"

"Yeah! Relieved! You were great!" Kim gave Shego a chaste kiss on the cheek. "We rock!"

"That we do, Princess, that we do!"

==##0##==

By the time they reached the lair, Betty Director felt better. She could walk down from the vehicle bay to the living area by herself, only leaning slightly on Kim from time to time.

She sat down gratefully at the breakfast nook.

"So, Betty, can I get you anything? Some food? Something to drink?"

"Food would be nice. Anything you got, really. And a beer?"

Kim started heating a ready-made ham and broccoli pie in the micro-wave, while Shego opened a beer for each of them. She also placed two glasses on the table, and brought a bottle of Jack Daniel's down from a cupboard.

"Don't let Kimmie smell the whisky, or she'll start dancing with the bears!" Shego whispered to the confused Dr. Director.

Kim rolled her eyes as she put a plate with half a pie down before the liberated prisoner. She put some other frozen meals in the micro and sat down.

Betty Director took a bite and then looked at Kim and Shego. "You know," she eventually said to Shego, "I never thought I'd be saying this, but, boy! am I glad to see you! And you, too, Kim, of course!"

"Well, likewise, to some extent!" Shego answered and scooted her chair a bit closer to Kim's.

"So, what's been happening? What has the GJ been up to?"

"Well, we can only tell you what little we have found out ourselves," Kim began. "It began like this... "

==##0##==

The pies had been eaten and a number of beers had been consumed. The whisky bottle was empty, but Kim had luckily enough only had one very small glass.

Betty Director sat quietly, trying to absorb what she had been told.

"Jet fighters? Where on earth are they getting the funding for this? It used to be a real battle to get an improved model of paper clips! And secret bases in Wyoming? What the hell is there in Wyoming that there needs to be a secret base there?"

Shego shrugged. Kim said nothing, but blinked her eyes sleepily.

"And Will Du, dead? Well, I did have my reservations about his … common sense."

A thoughtful silence ensued.

"Shego?" Kim whined suddenly. "I'm tired! Can we go to bed, now?"

"Sure, Princess, I'm tired, too! And I'm sure Betsy could also do with some rest. We have prepared the blue room for Madame!"

"Oh, charmed, I'm sure! Is there a shower? And some other clothes? I really want to get rid of this orange jump-suite!"

Shego showed their guest to Dr. Drakken's room, were a full set of clothing had been laid out. The _en-suite_ bathroom had a luxurious shower and a wide variety of shampoos and cosmetics. To Dr. Director, it was too good to be true.

She lost no time getting ready for bed and slipping under the light blue covers.

Going quickly to sleep, she was only slightly disturbed by a series of strange, green flashes that seemed to originate from the other side of her bedroom door.

==##0##==

Dr. Elisabeth Director didn't really know were she was. She had been taken to one of Drew Lipsky's secret lairs, and had not bothered asking about the location. She new she was underground, and that she couldn't really get away without the assistance of Kim Possible and/or Shego.

It didn't matter, though. She felt free!

==##0##==

A/N. A bit shorter, this chapter, and all action. Hope you like!

Please read and review!


	18. Chapter 18

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

"_He who fails to plan, plans to fail."  
_Source unknown?

**Chapter eighteen, which contains scheming as well as some rest and recuperation. **

Dr. Elisabeth Director hadn't had nightmares in a long time.

She had lived them.

Not much could be worse, in her mind, than realising that her beloved Global Justice organisation was heading down a disastrous road, and that it had been taken from her. And not only had she been removed from the helm, she had been incarcerated in one of the harshest detention facilities ever built.

Her dreams, when she managed to sleep at all, had generally been a relief.

Now, however, she was having a bad dream. She dreamed that she was in the stainless steel windowless box, and that she had no hope whatsoever of getting out.

She was very happy to wake up, even though she had to spend a few minutes to establish that she was in fact now awake, and that the comfortable king-size bed with the blue bed-linen didn't belong in her fantasies.

==##0##==

Just like her prison cell at HSDF, the blue bedroom did not have any windows.

Drew Lipsky liked gadgets, though, and had bought one of these combined lamps and alarms that were supposed to wake you up with a simulated sunrise. The sound that went with the increasing light was that of birdsong and a chattering brook.

It was probably supposed to be gentle and idyllic, and for Dr. Director, it certainly worked.

The digital clock read 10 a.m. She didn't really know what time it had been when she went to bed, but it felt like she had slept soundly for a long time.

Betty Director used the bathroom and splashed some water on her face. She slipped her feet into the pink bunny slippers provided, wrapped herself in an equally pink fluffy bathrobe, and went in search of breakfast and company.

==##0##==

She found Kim and Shego sitting at the breakfast nook table. Shego, dressed in a dark green t-shirt and black running shorts, was having coffee and a muffin. Kim Possible, similarly dressed, was eating something from a plate and drinking OJ.

The scene looked oddly domestic, in contrast to their command style activities yesterday.

"Morning, Dr. D2!"

"D2?"

"Well, in this lair, Drakken is the number one Doctor, so you have to be D2, don't ya?"

"Makes sense, perhaps." The newly designated D2 didn't really like being number two in any sense of the word, but felt a bit too sleepy to argue. "Is there any cereals?"

"Sure, look in the right-hand cupboard. Milk, juice and stuff are in the 'fridge!"

Betty D. choose herself some food, and sat down opposite the younger women.

"So. Thank you both for getting me out," she said. "But what are you planning to do now?"

"I'm having beans on toast!" Kim brightly declared.

"Eh … what?"

"Don't pay her no attention , and for heaven's sake don't encourage her!"

As Kim pouted and Shego smirked, Betty Director felt she was missing some sort of subtext.

"Go on, Shego! You explain it to her!"

"Okay. Well, you heard what happened to us, and I'm sure you understand we're not going to go down without a fight. We are going to take the GJ down, and you're going to help us."

"No."

"What?"

"No. I'm very sorry, and I know it sounds crazy, but I'm not going to help you take the GJ down. It's still an official intergovernmental organisation, and it still has the mandate to act in the interest of its Member States, as directed by its Board of Governors."

"You can't be serious?! Haven't you seen what it has become? Didn't you notice they put you in their top-of the-line prison camp to rot?"

"Believe me, I've seen it better than most. That doesn't change the fact that it's still a legitimate organisation, acting within its mandate."

"But the dam' thing gone wild! They put you in prison! They try to kill people and force them to work for them! It's like a high-tech bloody guerrilla force!"

Betty dropped her head and looked at her half-empty bowl of cornflakes. "Yeah, but they are still the officially sanctioned organisation, here, and you are the outlaws. Sorry!"

"I can't believe my ears. Princess, can you believe your ears?"

Kim shook her head. "My ears are unbelievable!"

"And it's still, in some way _my_ GJ," Dr. Director went on, even more softly. "I built it from a one-office operation in the basement of the Department of Inland Security! I'm not taking it down without giving the built-in checks and balances the chance to steer it back on course."

"But, Betsy, they've had that chance for, like, a year, now, haven't they? How much trouble do you want them to be able to cause before someone from the outside steps in?"

Dr. D2 shook her head but didn't answer.

"Dr. Director, did you understand what Will Du wanted to do to me and Shego? Did you understand what Lieutenant Hunter was planning? Do you realise how far beyond redemption they have gone?"

"Redemption! And who decides they are beyond that? You? A twenty year old teenage hero from a sheltered small town life? An antisocial super-powered villainous _thief_?"

Shego shot up and grabbed the former GJ leader by the scruff of the bathrobe. "Yes, we do! Who else? Our faces were rubbed in the very shit your beloved band of thugs are now creating. We see it, we do something about it! What's wrong with that? It's our fucking duty, is what it is! And don't you dare being disrespectful to Princess! She has worked loyally for your pet agency far more than it deserved! Don't tell me you didn't use her! You have always been running a more ruthless operation than you have led her to believe, haven't you?"

Betty blinked her single eye, somewhat shocked by the outburst. Furthermore, Shego's fist was heating up and the rising temperature brought tears to her eye. She didn't back down, though. "I did what had to be done and I'm not ashamed of anything I've done! You hear? Not ashamed! I am a professional, and the GJ is a professional agency responsible only to its Board of Governors! Some things may have been less than pretty, but it did what it was supposed to do!"

Kim placed a hand on Shego's shoulder, and made her sit down again. "Calm down, both of you! I get the sitch, but that doesn't matter. What matters is – are you ashamed _now_? By what your GJ has become? I'm guessing you are, otherwise you'd still be in charge."

Shego stood up and went to get refills of coffee for all of them. "Betsy, I think you need to know a bit more about what your gaggle of spooks have been up to," she said, returning to the table. "And I know who you should be talking to in order to get that intel."

"Not you?"

"No, somebody else. Perhaps you'd believe him. Grab your coffee and come with me."

Shego led the way to the control room and had Betty sit in an office chair in front of a video screen and a microphone.

"This is thoroughly encrypted and untraceable, courtesy of Drakkentech and other expertise, so you just sit there and talk to the nice man on the screen until you get it. Got it?"

Dr. Director sat down and shot an irritated one-eye look at Shego. "Who are you going to call? The President?"

"No, better," Shego said and pressed the controls to conjure the visage of Wade onto the screen.

Dr. Director groaned.

==##0##==

A few hours later, Dr. Director found Kim and Shego on one of the sofas, watching some mindless crap on the big-screen television.

She sat down in a chair beside them. Shego muted the TV and gave her a questioning look.

"OK. I'm sorry."

"Good!"

"Yes. You were right. The GJ is too far gone. I understand that now. It's just hard to shake old loyalties."

"But Wade shook you?"

"Yes. Mostly the files he had assembled on what had happened to a lot of my more trusted co-workers. And their families. They ruined agent Cooper's family. They even shot agent Leiter's dog."

"Yeah, they've gone all Don Corleone on you, haven't they?"

"I'm just relieved they haven't taken Mr. Load himself down yet. Or your cousin."

"Well, Uncle Slim isn't so easy a target." Kim said. "His robot horses are actually the least scary in his line-up of security hard-ware."

"And that says a lot," Shego contributed with a shiver, "given the inherent evilness in all things horsy!"

"And," Kim continued, "I think they might still be hoping to recruit Wade."

"Oh, that ain't it, Princess. They're just hoping we'll get careless and contact him openly for help. Much better than taking him in for questioning, if he doesn't know where we are, _yet_! They might think we are still on the run, without money and without any equipment and backup, and will soon get desperate._" _

"Yes, Shego, you're right. That would be the smart and by-the-book thing to do. But anyway, I'm convinced. However much it pains me, the GJ has to be … put down. And I will help you. I don't know exactly how, though."

"Ats'a fine, boss!" Kim declared happily, while Shego rolled her eyes. "We have time to plan this. They won't find this place in a hurry, and with a trip or two to Yucksville, we'll have all we need for a nice vacation!"

"Not enough beach-life and night-clubs for my taste," Shego said, "but a lot better than six feet under. Let's have some lunch. Then we can get on with the planning."

==##0##==

It was soon evident that the planning would take longer than Kim and Shego had thought, and life at the lair settled into some kind of routine.

Dr. Director would spend most of the day in the control room, talking to Wade, and analysing the data he uncovered. Together, they were carefully and painstakingly building a picture of the current organisation of the GJ, their line of command, and their resources. This took a lot of time, since they did not dare hack directly into the more sensitive files, but had to construct their case from circumstantial evidence.

Shego would do the cooking, and also some repair and maintenance on the vehicles and equipment in the lair. Kim would occasionally take the bike into Yucksville for newspapers and fresh food. Otherwise, the two younger women would be sparring in the training facilities one level down from the living quarters, or lounging around doing nothing much, together.

Dr. Director didn't really like what she saw. On the second day, she took the time to seek Shego out for a private conversation.

==##0##==

Dr. Director found Shego lying on her back under the SUV in the vehicle bay, trying to unstick the handbrake that had rusted solid in the 'on' position. She had put the car up on blocks, and had removed the rear wheels to get at the brakes.

Dr. Director sat down on the pile of wheels. "Can I talk to you for a moment?" she said.

A muffled reply came from under the car. "Go ahead!"

"Come out of there, will you? This is serious."

Shego crawled out and glared at the older woman. "All right, One-eye! I'm out and I'm serious! What's your beef?"

"Shego," Dr. Director said without further introduction, "what are you doing to Kim?"

"Doing to Princess? Nothing that's your dam' business!"

"I make it my business! Look, I'm helping you two, but it's not all that easy for me. I need to be able to trust you. And you need to be able to trust me. And I want to know what you're up to."

Shego sighed. "And what's your problem? What do you _think_ I'm doing to Pumpkin?"

"That's what I want to know. I know you think I used her, before. Perhaps I did. But I do care about her, and I want to make sure _you _are not using her now, or doing something that will hurt her."

"Gee, Mr. Daddy, you wanna know my intentions are honourable and that I'll make an honest woman out of her?"

"You confirm my worst fears. Are you … seducing her?"

Shego threw her spanner down with a clang. "I'm not _seducing _her. If anything, she's got _me _wrapped around her little finger!"

"You're doing something, though, aren't you?"

"Look, I've told her how I feel. The rest is up to her. I'm not putting on the pressure, here! And I still say it's none of your business what we do when we shut the bedroom door."

"But it _is _my business what you do when you are outside! Look, Ms McGowan, a brief affaire is one thing, but what sort of life would you be offering her?"

"I'm not having this conversation with _you_ of all people! I'll talk to Mr. Dr. P, when we're good and ready, if ever we are! And you keep your nose out of it, you hear?"

Dr. Director just looked at Shego, her suspicions confirmed.

"Look, you have it all wrong! It's _me _that is serious about this, and Kim who is just fooling around. I _know _I love her for real. I've known that for quite some time now. But Kim doesn't know what to think. She's just … exploring. And at the moment, she's exploring if she can like me, that way. It seems she can, but I don't know if she can be serious about it. I'm sure you understand, the situation is a bit special at the moment. If we get out of it, and she can go back to her life with friends, family and school, it may be very different! And I'm preparing for the worst."

"I think we have different conception on what the worst possible scenario is, here. Are you seriously telling me I should be talking to Kim instead? Asking her not to play with _your _feelings? Asking her to be responsible?"

"I'm just telling you what the situation is. And I'm telling you to stay the hell away and not put your foot in it!"

"The owls are not what they seem, hereabouts," Dr. Director said after a while.

"I don't even want to know what that means! Are we done, here?"

"Yes. We're done. But think hard on what you are doing, will you?"

==##0##==

Having a scrambled connection to Wade meant that they could get some news about what happened in Middleton and elsewhere. It was mostly Kim that learned anything interesting.

There was nothing on the whereabouts of Dr. Drakken. Shego provided some information on what to look for if Dr. D. were to try to contact her. There was nothing, however, and Shego grew gradually convinced that the GJ had gotten him. He was probably slaving away in some secret lab, making whatever his new masters wanted.

Kim's family seemed to be more or less fine. Her mother had been on an extended sick leave since after the drama at the hospital. Wade didn't know if she was really ill, or if she had just been asked to stay away for the time being. Mr. Dr. P. was still at the Space Centre, but seemed to have been given slightly different projects to work on. Probably the GJ was exercising their influence, flexing their muscles to make the Possible family behave.

Joss and Uncle Slim were OK. They were probably just being watched as well, in case Kim tried to take refuge there, although it might also have had something to do with Joss being not all that easy to deal with. According to Wade, she could be a lot more drastic in her reactions than Kim had been at her age. She had a streak of violence in her that her cousin had lacked.

Ron, finally, was not in Middleton at the moment. He and Monique had gone on a mid-term study tour to Paris, France. Ron had been awarded a grant to enable him to experience some three star French restaurants at first hand, and Monique had gone with him to take a look at _the _fashion scene.

Dr. Director didn't have any close relatives, apart from her twin brother Gemini. Wade had no sightings of him, and the WEE seemed to be lying low.

All in all, they were reasonably sure that nobody was being harmed or put under pressure because they were on the run.

==##0##==

Six days after Elisabeth Director had been freed from the GJ-HSDF, they were ready to move. Wade and Betty Director were reasonably certain that they established the location of some of the more important facilities the GJ had established during the last six months. They had also established files on a number of persons in the agency that could hopefully be approached for help, and a few others that could perhaps be coerced into giving further information and assistance.

They had a plan for action.

==##0##==

Dr. Director, however, was not entirely happy.

Oh, she was glad to be out of prison, and she was grateful and relieved for the change in her personal circumstances.

She also understood very well what had to be done, but she was not happy about the course of action she had embarked upon. She had a very rigid code for what was legal and moral to do, and bringing down an intergovernmental crime-fighting organisation would not usually be on her to-do list. And even though she had been shown ample evidence of what sort of organisation the GJ now was, it troubled her to be plotting its exposure and downfall.

At more introspective moments, she recognised the fact that she had an overly absolute sense of right and wrong, and an inclination to respect authority that bordered on the unhealthy. She sometimes thought this might be due to Gemini and his evil ways, and her need to be different from him in each and every aspect of her life.

She was a bit surprised that Kim Possible, whom she had thought too naïve and too goody-two-shoes, managed to be comfortable with a much more pragmatic view of the matter. She did understand that being on the receiving end of the GJ's new aggressive activities would have had a big impact on the young woman. On the other hand, more than six months in the HSDF had had a big impact on her, too, and she still found it difficult to switch to the role of rogue.

Perhaps being close to Shego was influencing Kim in more ways than one. Or perhaps it was just that Kim _did_ care very much for the green-tinted and sarcastic villainess, and having GJ threaten _her_ life provoked a more violent response than any threat to Kim herself.

Whatever it was, Dr. Director was not happy. She knew what she had to do, but she didn't have to like it. And she certainly didn't have to like Shego, or what she seemed to be doing to Kim Possible.

==##0##==

A/N: Another chapter a bit shorter than usual. And not much action this time. Well, they do have to rest now and again.

As you may or may not have noticed, I've somehow exploded the format with this and the previous chapter. All the earlier instalments began and ended with Kimmie's feelings or reactions, and most of the action, though in 3rd person singular, was Kimmiecentric. Now, however, Dr. Director's inner world has been allowed to intrude, and there was a scene where Kim herself was not present.

OK, partly this is because I became bored with always beginning and ending with "Kim Possible was this" or "Kim Possible felt that".

Partly, however, it's a bit smarter than that. I had been thinking about an entirely different writing project that it might be effective to follow a one-person point of view for some time, only to expand the perspective at a certain point and suddenly providing an outside look on the main character. Here, it's not carried out properly, but it may perhaps serve the purpose of showing how Kim and Shego get closer and closer, without having to give a blow by blow account of their physical and emotional love life.

Well, some of you may be disappointed by this cop-out, while some may be relieved.

Oh, the line about the owls is a reference to the TV series _Twin Peaks_, by David Lynch. The stuff with "Ats'a fine, boss", here and in previous chapters, is an attempt to have Kim do a Chico Marx style delivery, just to annoy Shego.


	19. Chapter 19

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

"_In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it's more dangerous to lose than to win."  
_George Bernard Shaw, 1856 – 1950.

**Chapter nineteen, which relates the gathering of information and the brief lull before the storm. **

Robert Arnold Babbage, Jr., otherwise known as 'Bodge', was happy to be going home from work earlier than usual.

He had been working on his regular updates for the main security system as usual, and this time, he had been able to install it all in good time ahead of schedule. At lunchtime that very day, he had been able to run the scripts and hand in all the keys and code-numbers to his supervisor. He had been complimented on finishing the work on time and had been happy to hear that he could take the rest of the week off.

The happiness was only slightly diminished by the fact that it was already half past twelve on the Friday. He was grateful, anyway, for being able to go home early for the weekend, and was already thinking about what he could be doing with the extra time.

He could make himself a TV marathon, watching as many episodes from his new 'Doctor Who' DVD box as could before falling asleep. He could make popcorn and snacks and even have a beer.

Or he could get on-line and do some serious gaming with his World of Witches character. Popcorn and a beer were possible extras also in this case.

He would of course visit all the chat-rooms and communities he belonged to, and on Sunday he would go visit his Mum for a proper dinner and to get his laundry.

Well, exciting was perhaps not the most apt word for his weekend, but at least he would not have to put up with the oppressive atmosphere at work. Personally, he didn't pay all that much attention, and he had not himself been given any new or different tasks, but the general buzz at the water-cooler was not good.

Some of his older colleagues were talking of quitting, but for some reason he didn't know, nobody had actually left, yet. Some talked about surveillance and monitoring jobs that they found difficult or unethical. Bodge didn't worry. As far as he was concerned, if he could hack a system his employers were welcome to the results, whatever they were. He was paid to do the computer stuff, and they were there do ask for it if they needed it. Simple, really. His contract had very strict clauses about disclosing anything he found out in his work, so whatever surveillance he did, it was useless anyway. He couldn't use it for impressing his net-friends, and it was nothing that made much for small talk if he were to meet a girl at the local coffee-shop.

Much of his work was not about hacking, or doing surveillance. Most of it was actually about making regular changes and updates to the different security systems. This included everything from new locks and sensors in the different buildings, to generating new passwords and codes at regular intervals. And this he regularly did, for all the staff, and for all sorts of applications. A new key-code to let people at the administrative section enter the rest-rooms? He fixed it. New passwords for internet and email access. That was his task. Fire-walls that stopped everyone looking at YouTube at their work station. Bodge did it. Not on his own, though. No, all the systems needed authorisation from people above him to actually implement all the security measures, and the system was set up in such a way that he himself would not actually know any of the actual passwords or access codes once this had been done.

No, Bodge did a useful job, but the final responsibilities lay with more important people. Bodge was a programmer, not an officer, and his work was on the whole uninteresting, and, in fact, mind-numbingly boring. Weekends were the time when he could escape and immerse himself in his inner world of sci-fi, fantasy, gaming and TV-shows.

His mother always worried that he didn't do anything "healthy" and that he didn't meet enough people.

He felt he met more than enough people at work. And boring people they were, too. Anyway, he had a good salary and a secure employment, and while he mostly enjoyed himself with games and TV, he was not likely to get in any trouble drinking and fighting in bars. Not that he had any real concept of how one would go about drinking and fighting in bars, but it always seemed a good argument to use on his mother.

Well, anyway, he was happy to begin his weekend early, and to be driving his old Toyota back from Washington to the small flat in his old home town in eastern Virginia.

==##0##==

He was now on the rather narrow and not very busy road leading off the highway and towards his home. It wound its way through gentle wooded hills and it was actually a rather entertaining drive. He could imagine himself with a far more powerful car, how he would rush along with the consummate ease of a professional rally driver, impressing some unspecified woman in the passenger seat.

In real life, however, he drove quite a lot more slowly, and he soon noticed a big motorbike coming up behind him, wanting to overtake.

It was a big machine, and he imagined himself being able to identify it exactly. Harley-Davidson, he would announce with authority, 2001 Fat Boy.

The bike pulled level with his car, and he found himself staring at it. The driver was a young woman, shiny black hair spilling out from under her helmet. The passenger was also a young woman, but with read hair.

Perhaps he should buy himself a motorcycle? He wouldn't mind having that passenger wrapping her arms around him. Or perhaps the brunette? He couldn't really decide. Why limit himself, though, as long as it was only daydreaming?

The bike suddenly floored it and disappeared up ahead. His fantasies remained, although he couldn't really see himself actually buying a motorbike. He suspected he would have to know some thing about bikes, and that he would have to test-drive some different models, which could prove embarrassing. He had never been on even a moped.

==##0##==

He was shaken from his reveries going round a small hill through a gentle bend. There, on the road ahead, was the bike. Not at the roadside, but right in the middle of the lane. The red-headed passenger was standing just behind it. The driver was nowhere to be seen.

He slammed the brakes on and came to a skidding halt with just a few metres to spare. He really had to let the garage look at the brakes of the Toyota.

The young woman had taken off her helmet. She was dressed in jeans and a jeans jacket, and wore biker's boots. She had a pair of sunglasses, the kind that looked like mirrors from the outside.

She just stood there, waiting.

Bodge got nervous. What was this? Had they broken down and wanted help? Had they had an accident? But where was the driver? And why didn't the girl say anything?

It might be a robbery of some sort, he thought. Or maybe they wanted to hi-jack his car? Or kidnap him, and send a ransom note to his Mum?

Exciting stuff for fantasies, and for imagining different macho ways of getting out of the situation. In the sudden reality, though, it only scared him shitless.

He looked in the rear-view mirror and prepared for hitting reverse and getting out of there. He flinched, however, discovering that the driver of the bike stood directly behind him, looking sort of … dangerous.

He decided to go forward instead, making a turn around the surprisingly big bike. That would work. Worst case scenario, he would hit the bike and make some dents, but he could surely get past it if he just stepped on it.

He was sure of that for almost half a second more. Then the red-haired girl brought up a shotgun and thrashed his front tyres, one barrel for the left and the other for the right.

Bodge suddenly found himself totally paralysed by fear.

==##0##==

The passenger of the bike walked up to the car.

"Sorry about that, Bodge, but we need to talk to you. In private. Can you step out and come this way, please?"

They knew him? His brain was no longer functioning very well and he could think of nothing smart to say or do. Easiest way was, of course, to just do as the girl asked. At least she seemed polite about it. Except for shooting his tyres full of holes, that is.

He stepped out and followed the girl with the gun up into the idyllic woodlands by the side of the road. The driver of the bike quickly backed his car onto a small track a few metres behind them, making it seem like it was parked there. The front wheels made expensive noises, crunching the gravel with totally flat tyres.

The driver also hid the bike behind the car before following Bodge and the redhead into the woods.

It would look just like the people in the old red Toyota had just stopped for a small walk, perhaps to have a picnic, or perhaps just for a sudden call of nature.

Nobody would notice anything strange, and nobody would wonder where Bodge had gone.

==##0##==

They soon came to a small clearing where it looked like people had made camp before. There were a few logs to sit on, and an open space with a ring of sooty stones indicated where fires had been made. He could imagine happy people toasting marshmallows or grilling sausages around it.

Bodge's throat was completely dry. He could imagine all too many things that could be about to happen to him now. On the other hand, they all seemed so unrealistic that he could not really believe in any of them.

The girl still carried the shotgun in the crock of her arm. Surely, she hadn't loaded it again, had she? It should be empty?

"Sit, make yourself comfortable. As I said, we need to talk."

"Don't worry, geek!" a voice said behind his back. "She's the nice one, and as long as you do what she wants, you'll be fine!"

The other woman had caught up with them. She was dressed in black jeans and an old leather jacket that looked very much bad-ass biker. There was no criminal gang affiliation advertised on the back of the jacket, though, just a Harley-Davidson logo.

Obeying felt like a smart thing to do, and, anyway, his knees sort of gave out on him, sitting him down on one of the logs rather hurriedly. His would.-be… kidnappers? Robbers? _Murderers_? … sat down on another log, in front of him.

The dark-haired Biker Chick took out a small device, like a really old and big cell phone, and appeared to take his picture with it. She pressed some switch, and a tinny voice could be heard. "Yes. Affirmative. That's him!"

"Good", the woman with the shotgun said. "We know who you are, and what you do for a living. You don't know us, and that's as it should be. It's safer that way, not least for you."

Bodge didn't get it. "Look, if you know who I am, you know I don't really have any money. I'm not an important person at all. I have no influence anywhere, and... "

"Oh, but there you're wrong. You are very important in one special way."

The slightly taller woman nodded in agreement with her partner.

"You sure are. You see, you are actually going to tell us everything about all the security arrangements at the Central Planning Unit of your employer. The newly built facility on Donovan Street, not the old HQ outside Langley."

"You want the security specs for the CPU?" All the blood drained from his face. "Why would you think I would have access to them?"

"We know you have. In fact, you designed them, didn't you? Betsy?"

"Yes," came the tinny voice from the handheld device again. "that's what he was hired to do. And, we know that there are failsafes and other input to the system, so that you would normally not be able to give us full access."

"But just today," Biker Chick went on,"you installed the upgrades and initiated the new set of codes, didn't you? And handed it over to your supervisor, Dr. Laibach. Dangerous man to have in your organisation, is Dr. Laibach. That is, if you loose his loyalty and make him relax his sense of duty. Is he very loyal, nowadays, do you think? Does he enjoy working for Global Justice? As far as we know, he is just now making on his way to his mistress in New Jersey and will probably not implement the personal codes and settings until Monday! They'll remain just as you wrote them for the weekend!"

"How …. how do you know all this?"

"Oh, we have our sources! Inside sources, in fact," said Shotgun Girl.

"We are in fact also security!" said Biker Chick. "You see, we are testing that the people GJ has to trust are actually worth trusting."

Suddenly, Bodge understood. Or at least he hoped he did. "Oh, you're Internal Investigations, are you? I was rather wondering when I'd run up against you guys!"

"Yeah, we are getting to be a rather big department, lately!" said Shotgun Girl, smiling in a collegial manner.

"So," Biker Chick continued, "how about it? You give us the security update, and we check if Dr. Laibach can be trusted, or not?"

"Well, I dunno … How do I know you are investigating old Laidback, and not … me? Perhaps you're only testing to see if I can be talked into giving away the specs you want?"

"Oh, clever boy! Isn't he a clever boy, Sue?"

"Oh, we knew that, didn't we, Dolly? Look, don't worry! We'll sign you a receipt for the information. When the shit hits the fan, you just show it and you're in the clear!"

Bodge still hesitated.

"Look, Dolly, he is all thoughtful! I bet he wonders why we had to approach him like this, and not through more standard channels!"

"Nah, he's a smart guy, Susie! He realises we can't go through standard channels if we want to really catch people not doing their jobs. We can't risk alerting anyone that there's an investigation on, now, can we?"

"But look, Dolly, he's still not happy!"

"Perhaps he's concerned about his car? Don't worry, kid, we'll help you fix your flat tires."

"That almost did it, Dolly, but he's still not convinced!"

Biker Chick sighed. "So, we make him an offer. How about we give you some data in return? Make it an even swap?"

"What data?" Bodge asked uncertainly.

"How about all the secret cheat-codes for the current World of Witches on-line game?"

==##0##==

Kim and Shego returned to Washington in time for dinner.

They had transferred all the data from the encrypted and code-word protected laptop of the GJ computer geek to the 'Kimmunicator' Shego had put together using Wade's help and Drakken's equipment at the lair. Kim insisted on calling it a 'Shegonator' just to be obnoxious, and perhaps because the former side-kick had painted it in her signatory black and green.

They had then used two big spray cans that Drakken had developed to fill the front tires of the old Toyota. With the car lifted from the road on the jack, the wheels had filled out to their original roundness, and when the components in the spray hardened they had been filled solid with an elastic matrix of chemical bonds.

They had waved Bodge off on his way home, and had looked at each other.

"You think he fell for it? Or will he notify his supervisor about the security breach?"

"Nah, Princess, I think he took the bait. He does not seem to like Dr. Laibach all that much, and is way too excited about contributing towards getting him in trouble."

"Yeah. And he'll be too much in a hurry to get home to think about returning to work and overriding the updates to the security. He's just itching to log on and try his new cheating codes!"

Now, the motorbike stood parked at the curb on M Street in Georgetown, and Kim and Shego were sitting a t a window table in the popular McCreedy's Bar and Grill.

They were having a plate of miniature hamburgers as a starter, and had ordered crab cakes and fries for the entrees. Kim was drinking Miller Light, and Shego was enjoying some obscure ale.

They felt they had earned a small 'date' in preparation for what they would be doing later that night. Thanks to some hacking by Wade, money was not a problem anymore. He had provided them with a rather lengthy sequence of numbers that made it possible for them to draw cash at ATM's without a card, and without the transaction being traceable.

This cornucopia of cash had let Shego buy the HD that she really liked, and now provided them with the funds to eat and drink without having to look too closely at the prices in the menu. Kim was happy with it all. She liked crab cakes, and she was glad to be rid of the old bike they had stolen in the cabin by the lake. Not that the HD was all that much more comfortable, but at least it _looked _more dependable.

"I'm really glad that Betsy and Boy Wonder came through for us, there. I was a bit worried about there analyses of the personnel files and the routines of the Global Klutzes!"

"Yeah, lucky for us that programmer was such a geek! And that the attitudes at the GJ now make it so easy to believe that there would be an Internal Investigations unit that might just act like that. Anyway, that was good fun!"

"Yeah, we talk pretty convincing, together! Just don't start enjoying it too much. That sort of thing is really not what well educated young ladies should be doing for sport!"

Shego was in full Dolores Gomez disguise again, but her hair was now shoulder length in a style that reminded Kim of old Kathryn Hepburn movies. Kim's hair was still shortish but she had not bothered to dye it blond this time.

They relied more on blending in with the Friday evening crowd than on make-up and hair dye.

To further their chances of going unnoticed, they had left their mission gear at the Georgetown Lodge where they were staying, and instead dressed in the results of a brief shopping spree the previous afternoon. Kim was wearing a sleeveless green dress with a wide, knee-length skirt, over a pale yellow blouse. She looked sort of small girl cute, even though she was clearly an adult woman. Shego had a much shorter and more provocative dress, and a short leather jacket. This was not a bad-ass biker jacket, though, but looked like something designed by some fashion oracle in Rome or Paris.

They drew a few appreciative looks, but none of the kind that could make them feel they were recognised or in danger of blowing their cover.

==##0##==

They had just finished their meal and had ordered coffees when Kim leaned back and looked long and hard at Shego.

"What, Pumpkin? Is there something stuck in my teeth, or what?"

"No," Kim said softly. "Just looking."

"I'm going to regret this, but I just have to ask. Why?"

"Well, I was just thinking of what has happened in the last couple of weeks. All the trouble we've had. And all the places we have hidden ourselves. Our life on the run. And now, here we are, in a nice restaurant, and staying at a nice hotel. It's almost … normal?"

Shego gave a snort. "Look, Cupcake, we are not out of the woods, yet! You do understand all the almost impossible things we have to bring off to get out of this mess alive, don't you?"

"Yeah, I know that. It's just that it feels kind of different, you know? To have some money, to be dressed nicely and just to be out for a meal … together."

Shego looked down at the table. Was Kim actually giving her some kind of answer, here?

All right, they had been doing things together for quite a while now. They had also spent some time in bed together. Shego did not, however, really dare think about what this could mean. As she had said in the strange conversation with Dr. Director, she was thinking that Kim would be getting out of the, dare she say it, relationship once they had resolved the present situation. With the help of Wade and Betty Director, they actually hoped to resolve it pretty soon. And 'hope' was the important word, here. Shego didn't know what her Princess really thought, but for herself, she still suspected that there was larger than average chance of their ending up dead, instead. Or even worse, with Kimmie dead, and Shego still alive.

Either way, Shego was not too sure of her future, and Pumpkin hadn't said anything about it. They had just been living for the moment, and taking the day as it came.

Now, however, Kimmie had been talking about them having a meal together, on the town, as being normal. Shego should have been happy. Strangely enough, though, she felt a bit sad. What if this was the only normal 'date' they would ever have? What if tomorrow would see the final victory of the new GJ? Or what if they were able to carry their plan through, but it would be the end of her time with the teen hero?

Kim noticed Shego not reacting as expected.

"Hey, why so down? We'll fix this shit! I can do anything, and you can do the rest! We're unbeatable!"

"Princess, don't go around thinking like that! It's an invitation to disaster! We must understand the odds, here, and go into this not underestimating the challenge!"

"Oh, Sheegsie! Are you afraid I'm jinxing the sitch by just trying to be a bit optimistic? Don't worry. I know what we are getting into, here, and I know what may happen!"

Shego gave her a sharp glance. Did she talk about the GJ, now, or was she talking about knowing what could happen between the two of them?

"Shego, let's skip the coffee!" Kim said, placing a wad of bills on the table. "Let's just go back to the Georgetown Lodge and rest a bit before it's action time!"

==##0##==

Shego followed Kim out of the restaurant and towards the bike.

Shego had been taking charge of the planning and the decisions since their night in the cabin, and Kim had seemed happy to do the side-kick thing.

What she had said just now, however, seemed to indicate that Kim was back at the helm and calling the shots.

Not necessarily for the mission they had planned for tonight, but more in general.

Shego had revealed her feelings for the younger woman. She hadn't meant to do it, but it had sort of emerged, anyway.

Kim had been unsure. She had not seemed able to handle the situation, at first.

Then, they had discovered that the physical side of things need not be a problem. Far from a problem, as far as Shego was concerned, anyway.

But they had not at all touched on the more long-term or serious implications. Shego had not dared bring it up, and Kim had not said anything. Until now.

And now she went and said it, just a few hours before the most crucial phase of their war on the Global Justice.

Shego was hopeful. She didn't dare be happy yet, given her superstitious dread of inviting disaster by taking victory for granted. But she was hopeful.

==##0##==

A/N This chapter is a bit different, bringing in a completely outside viewpoint in this Bodge character.

Don't know why I did that, really. Just felt like bringing something new into the narrative, I guess.

More significantly, is Kim telling Shego something serious, here? Not in so many words, perhaps, but surely the message is there?


	20. Chapter 20

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

"_What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?"_  
Vincent van Gogh, Dutch Painter (1853 – 1890)

**Chapter twenty, ****being just one long account of breaking, entering, and grievous bodily harm. **

Shego was nervous.

It was a very uncharacteristic feeling for the usually so confident and competent super-powered woman.

She could understand the reasons, however.

In the past, she had faced action mostly to execute some plan of Drakken's. Their hare-brained and somewhat pointless nature made it difficult to care one way or the other about the outcome. She would be happy if she didn't get hurt too much, and she couldn't care less about what became of the grand endeavours of the blue-tinted dork. At least not until he had had such a consistent sequence of setbacks that he began to have difficulties filling her pay envelope properly by the end of the week.

This time, though, she actually cared a lot about the way things went down.

This was a single chance at getting the organised psychopaths of the GJ Covert Operations off their back.

If they made it, they would be free to live their lives. If they didn't, they wouldn't have any lives to live.

So, she cared about her own survival. She cared even more about the life and limb of one Kimberly Anne Possible, former teen hero. She even cared about her feelings and their future.

And it could all so easily end here.

She would have to be stupid not to be nervous about the situation. And Siobhán 'Shego' McGowan was far from stupid.

So, accordingly, she was nervous.

==##0##==

1013 Donovan Street housed the GJ Central Planning Unit, not the Operational HQ with its complete 24/7 activities. Most of the staff did a 9 to 5, with some overtime, and went home. Still, there were probably a handful of people still working.

It was now about half past two in the morning. The neighbourhood around the large red-brick five-story building at 1013 Donovan Street was virtually deserted. There were no restaurants and bars in the area, and no residential buildings. It was all offices and business premises, and nobody had any real reason to be there at such an hour of the night.

Nobody except two young women dressed in dark trouser and tops, wearing gloves and soft boots.

They were standing on the pavement, looking at the building that could contain the key to their freedom.

The building didn't really have a pronounced architectural style, but they knew, courtesy of Wade's research in public records, that it had been built in the forties as a psychiatric hospital.

The block was rather narrow and the long sides of the building both faced streets that were fairly busy during daylight hours.

The facades on these sides were also rather ornate, with a large helping of ledges, stonework and embellishments.

The side walls had fewer windows and less ornaments, and faced onto narrow alleys.

Because of the data they had gotten from Bodge, they also new that these walls had fewer sensors and security installations.

In preparation for their mission, they had been to a sports shop the day before and invested in ropes, cams, pitons, carabiners and the like, and were well equipped for reaching their first objective, the roof.

Shego turned to Kim and whispered. "The wall looks okay. I'll be able to use my powers to sink grips into the mortar between the bricks. I'll climb up to that ledge over the second story, sink a cam or a piton in the cracks, and drop a line back down to you. All right?"

Kim nodded. Shego jumped over the wrought iron fence and walked across the gravel and flowerbeds up the wall of the building. The wall was in good repair, but concentrated bolts of hot plasma crumpled the mortar and allowed the expert cat burglar to grip the bricks with her fingertips and climb upwards using only hands and arms.

It was hard work, but she had done this many times before and was quite confident she could make the ascent.

She found the ledge to be about 20 centimetres wide when she reached it. She made a bigger than usual hole in the brick and mortar and forced a double stem cam into the crack. The thin climbing rope went easily through loop at the end, and she turned her head to drop it down to Kim.

Kim, however, had not bothered waiting for the rope, and had climbed up the same way as Shego had, using only her arms and fingertips.

"Princess!" Shego hissed when the smaller girl reached the ledge. "You were supposed to wait for the rope! It's dangerous, climbing like that!"

But Kim had a broad smile on her face. "Yeah, I know, but it was so boring, just standing there!"

"So if I climb on to the next ledge, will you wait here for the rope this time?"

"Nope! No fun at all!"

"Pumpkin, you're crazy!"

"Yeah, but you like me all the same, don't you?"

"Not if you fall and smash yourself to a wet spot on the pavement, I don't!" Shego muttered but Kim only giggled.

They soon reached the highest ledge, just under the roof, and found themselves having to negotiate a considerable overhang.

Shego fixed a four-pronged hook the end of the rope, and carefully threw it up over the edge of the flat roof, managing to get it caught on something solid at the first try. She pulled the rope tight, and tied the end to the loop of a cam just above the ledge.

"So, Pumpkin! Will you use the rope this time?"

"If it makes you happy!" Kim said, gripped the rope and pulled herself up and over the edge of the roof. She turned around, reaching down with both arms to help Shego up.

Shego brought along the free end of the rope up with her, tucked into her belt. She now pulled it hard, undoing the knot in the cam. Now, no trace of their climb could be seen from the street.

==##0##==

Robert Arnold Babbage, Jr., woke with a start, feeling sure that something was very wrong.

He had played WoW using his new cheat-codes until about midnight, and had drunk no less than two beers, and then gone to bed. To his disappointment, cheating had not been all that fun. And now he had confirmed something his Mum always told him; that alcohol would make you sleepy but would not let you sleep very well.

That was not it, though, the reason he had woken up. No, there was something else.

Now, in the middle of the night, he was suddenly convinced he had done something stupid.

OK, the two women on the bike had wanted his security update data to check if Dr. Laibach did the processing as he should. It had seemed plausible at the time. Or perhaps not. Anyway, the problem was that Dr. Laibach doing nothing was not all that big of a problem. OK, the default code for authorising and changing passwords and codes for the next period would remain active until old man Laidback had finished his work. The upgrades wouldn't become active before he had done it, either. But that in itself wasn't so serious. Not compared to the list of security measures and current codes he had provided the Internal Investigations team with.

That could really be a problem. He was starting to have serious doubts about them actually belonging to the GJ Internal Investigations.

And if that was the case, it would be his head for the chop, not Laibach's.

Bodge went as far as to vent his frustration with a bad word, spoken out loud. "Well, shit!" he said.

Before he could change his mind, he grabbed his phone from the bedside table and dialled Dr. Laibach's cell phone.

Quite a few signals sounded before anyone answered.

"Yes!? Who the hell is this?"

"Eh … good morning, sir! This is Robert Babbage, sir."

"Who?"

"Robert Arnold Babbage. 'Bodge', sir."

"Bodge! Do you know what fucking time it is, Bodge?"

"Yes, sir, it's two forty-three in the morning, sir.

There was silence for a while.

"Bodge, this had better be good!"

"Well, actually, sir, it's not good; it's bad!"

Bodge related the situation and what had happened. In the interest of clarity, he exaggerated the physical danger he had been exposed to a bit, and the resourcefulness of his answers and attempts to resist quite a lot. Dr. Laibach got the picture just fine.

"Bodge, you are an ass! An idiot!"

"Eh … yes, sir!"

"Now, get in your car and drive like hell over to Donovan Street! I'll call the security desk and come along after you!"

"Is that really necessary, sir? Can't we just report it to main security and let them deal?"

"I say it is! We fix this ourselves, is that clear? Or would you rather make a full report on what really happened, here? "

"No, sir, not really … "

"Then get on with it!"

==##0##==

There was a door on the roof, but it was locked. It would show up immediately on the security monitors if they forced it open.

There were also quite a few ventilators on the roof, big enough to allow a slim figure to crawl along them. Unfortunately, someone (perhaps even Bodge) had thought about that and fitted motion detectors just inside the protective gratings.

There was, however, also a big array of communication aerials and antennas, mounted on a thick metal tower like support. The tower was hollow, since the different cables and connectors needed for it to operate were running inside, down into the building. There was an almost door-like inspection hatch bolted to the metal surface.

This was something Bodge had missed, if his data were to be believed, and there was not supposed to be any sensors or detectors inside the hatch.

Shego used her plasma powers to swiftly cut away the bolts, and Kim helped her lower the metal hatch to the roof without a sound.

The metal tube was fairly wide, but it was to a considerable extent filled with bunches of cables.

"OK, Princess. Do you think we can slip down along the cables, or do you think we have to cut some of them away?"

"Let's try just squeezing through, first, so we don't have to take down any of the communications. I'll go first, due to my delicate and beautiful figure!"

"Sweetiepie, you know you're crazy, and also conceited and cute!"

"Yeah, despite what Drakken always say, I _am_ all that!"

==##0##==

Kim could easily let herself slide down inside the cable duct, and was soon standing in a room full of electrical switching gear, computer routers, amplifiers, scramblers and encryption equipment.

Shego had a bit more trouble, and Kim had to pull her legs with all her weight before she, too, plopped down into the room.

Kim gave Shego a brief hug and smiled. "Top floor, honey! Let's find an empty office!"

Shego shook her head. "Princess, can't you keep it serious?"

"Nope! I'm the new buffoony side-kick! You said so, yourself!"

They knew how the security cameras were placed, and how they swept the building, and managed to find their way to an empty office close by without being spotted.

Then they waited.

==##0##==

At night, security worked from a large desk-like monitoring station in the lobby, doubling as reception and telephone switchboard.

Two rather beefy men in uniform sat at the desk, bored and sleepy. The monitors all showed empty office space apart from the occasional cleaner, but the entertainment to be had from watching these were limited. At least this night, when Alison, the all-time favourite babe of the whole security team, didn't do her shift.

The phone rang.

"Security, CPU!"

"-. - - "

"Yes, sir! No, nothing to report, sir!"

"- - -"

"Understood, sir! High Alert! Yes, of course. We'll call you immediately!"

Beef One ended the call. "What was that about?" his colleague asked.

"Some exercise or test to see we're still awake, probably. We are to step up to High Alert. There is a Yellow Risk of security breach, apparently."

"Yellow, eh? Is that where we have to do the half-hour sweeps on foot of the entire building?"

"That's the one! You go do that, and I'll call in Jed from the back-up. We need more people!"

There might have been a Yellow Risk assessment, and a step up in procedure to High Alert, but "alert" was not the first word to come to mind in describing the attitude of the guards. It was all probably some pointless exercise anyway. Beef Two ambled away to begin his sweep through the building. He'd start with the top floor, but found no reason not to take a detour by the coffee machine first.

==##0##==

Kim completed her disguise. She had already been dressed in dark blue pants, and a lighter blue uniform style shirt. Apart from the lack of badges and weapon's belt, she looked somewhat like a police officer.

The name-tag on her breast pocket said 'S. Pleasant. Trainee, Dept. of Admin."

Shego had been listening, her ear to the door. "OK, Pumpkin. I think she's coming!"

Kim took a deep breath and slipped out of the door, and into her chosen role for the little comedy to be enacted.

There was a janitor mopping cart further down the corridor. A middle aged woman in a grey coat was emptying a waste paper basket into the big trash container on the cart.

"Oh, please, can you help me?" the Admin. Trainee called out as she came up, looking flustered.

"Oh, my, girl! You scared me, there! What are you doing here at this time of night?"

The trainee blushed a bit. "Well, I managed to knock a big flowerpot to the floor and there's earth and pottery shards all over, right on the _nice_ carpet in front of his desk!"

This was perhaps true, but not really an answer to the question. The cleaner looked suspicious.

"Oh, please come!" Ms. Pleasant gestured confusedly, and emitted a nervous giggle. "I'm not really supposed to be here, you know, but if you'll help me, I'll tell you all about it."

She looked like a ten year old caught with the cookie jar. Her embarrassment made the cleaning lady think there might be some stupid hanky-panky involved, which made her curious enough to follow the girl to an office door, even though the uniform didn't really look like standard GJ issue, and the situation was a bit strange.

The moment she stepped inside the office, though, she had reason to re-evaluate the situation. There was no broken flower-pot, and no sign of anyone working late.

There was, however, suddenly someone behind her, with a strong arm around her neck.

"She's your size, Dolly!" the trainee said, all giggling embarrassment gone.

==##0##==

Beef Two got out of the elevator, a big mug of coffee in his left hand.

He had a security card in the other hand, which he swiped in a small card reader on the wall to show that he had been there, checking the fifth floor hallway. Once the card reader had uttered a cheery 'beep' and flashed a green light, the guard chose the right hand corridor and started walking.

After a few metres, he came to the t-shaped junction with the corridor running along the entire back side of the house. Here, the corridor to the right was empty. To the left, however, he saw three persons approaching, pushing one of the janitor carts.

Two of the women were apparently cleaners. He recognized Mary-Lou, who looked kind of ill, and the tall woman with shoulder-length black hair in the cleaner's coat was supporting her, helping her walk. The third woman, dressed in some kind of blue uniform, was pushing the cart.

"Ah, good!" the black-haired cleaner said. "Can you give us a hand? She's not feeling all that well!"

The guard was distracted for a few moments, torn between concern for Mary-Lou and the unexpected strangeness of the situation. He hesitated just long enough for the three women to get to within a couple of metres from him.

"Stop!" he finally said. "Who the hell are you? And what is that uniform supposed to be?"

He started reaching for something, the radio, perhaps, or maybe his gun.

The girl in the blue uniform, however, was too quick for him. In a sudden explosion of blurry motion she did a forward flip and kicked him right in the chin.

Lying flat on his back, wondering what had happened, he saw her leaning close with a happy grin on her face.

"Hello!" she said. "And goodbye!"

==##0##==

There was a soft chime from the bank of elevators in the main lobby, and Beef One looked up to see who was coming. Surely Rodney couldn't have finished his rounds so quickly?

It wasn't Rodney, however. It was three women with a janitor cart. A rather heavy cart by the looks of it.

Beef One had quicker thought processes than his colleague. He whipped his gun out from the holster and aimed at the group of women.

"Freeze!" he shouted excitedly. He had longed for the chance to do that for quite some time. "Put your hands in the air!"

The women, however, didn't react as they were supposed too.

The one in some sort of blue uniform dove to the left, and the taller woman in the cleaners coat threw herself to the right. The woman in the middle, whom he vaguely recognised, fainted where she stood and crumpled to the floor.

Before he could choose a target, the taller woman threw something at him. There was a burning sensation in his right hand, quickly followed by intense pain. His gun flew across the lobby and clattered to a stop by the ash-tray of the waiting area.

"Augh!" he felt himself compelled to announce to anyone that might be interested.

The next moment, he felt a sharp blow land at the base of the skull.

==##0##==

Beef Two had been neatly folded and put in the big trashcan of the cart. Kim reached down and retrieved his security card, while Shego dragged Beef One out of sight behind the security station. She removed his security card from the clip on his belt while Kim got the cleaning lady out of sight.

"Okay?" Shego said. "You ready?"

They each put a security card in the appropriate slots, one at each end of the desk. Kim then leaned towards a keypad in the middle of the console, and entered the default code that Bodge had provided for his superior.

A large panel with lots of switches, controlling a number of locks and security equipment in the whole building, lit up.

"Yes!" Kim whispered. "It worked!"

"Okay, then, Princess. You stay here and try to keep out of trouble. I'll take the com radio of the fat guy, here, and keep in touch! You open the vaults when you see me walking up to them!"

"Sure thing, Shego! Just let me put some of all this gear on. It might help fool anyone happening by that I'm the new security guard!"

She started getting various belts, clips and badges off the unconscious man behind the desk.

Shego went to collect the gun where it had fallen. "They won't believe you, Pumpkin. You don't have the guts required for the job!"

She patted her stomach to show that she meant the large girth both the guards were sporting, rather than any lack of determination and bravery.

Kim suddenly pouted unhappily. "Shego? Would you love me even if I were fat?"

Shego rolled her eyes. "Kimmiecub, you couldn't be fat and still be you! You are far to active and jumpy!"

"Aw, but _would_ you? _If_?"

"Sweetie, I'd love you if you were a gnu!"

"Moo!"

==##0##==

Kim sat behind the security desk in the lobby. She had most of the security guard gear on, as well as the sunglasses she had been wearing when they encountered Bodge on the road. She was also wearing the hat of one of the guards.

She was bored, already.

She tried to amuse herself by watching the security monitors. She found an older man typing furiously at his computer and a younger man immersed in a stack of thick reports, busy making pencil notes on a pad as he read. She also found an elderly gentleman and a young blond secretary very busy not working at all, on a rug in front of a well polished desk in a big office.

She could have bet a lot of money on the fact that they were completely unaware of the fact that there was a security CCTV in that particular location.

She blushed a bit before flipping the switch to shut that monitor off.

Shego, on the other hand, knew exactly where the security cameras were. Kim spotted her waving happily as we walked up to the big metal doors in the basement that blocked access to 'the vault'.

"Okay, here goes!" Kim said into a microphone on the desk.

Shego nodded and waited for the locks to click open before she pulled handle and pushed the metal doors open.

'The vault' was actually more of a safe and electronically shielded working environment than a strong room repository. It was fireproof and reasonably blast-proof. It had it's own battery powered electricity supply, and no outside connections whatsoever. The computer system in the vault had no internet or e-mail access, and not even a power cable to connect it to the grid. It was completely hacker proof.

The work stations and the paper copies of important documents were of course also inaccessible from the outside, and people entering or leaving were routinely checked by a number of guards.

This was the safest and most secret part of the new Global Justice. If there were any compromising evidence anywhere, this was the place.

Shego started the registrar's computer station and entered the override password that Bodge supplied. She started copying files to a portable hard disk drive, printing some documents, and photographing others on the screen.

It would take a while, but they would get what they came for.

==##0##==

Kim was desperately trying to amuse herself. There were a few magazines and newspapers in a drawer under the desk, but none held any interest for her. Most were the sort of publications that certain men would read when not in polite company. There were lots of beautiful women in various states of undress, but not a single one of them was Shego.

She thought of switching the monitor for the big office with the soft rug back on, but decided against it. None of the people in that room was Shego, either.

She eventually found a pocket book of sudoku puzzles when somebody walked in through the front doors. An elderly guard, as generously built as the ones in the trash bin and under the desk, walked in. His yaw dropped.

"What the fuck?" he shouted. "Who the hell are you? Where's Rod and Danny?"

Kim managed to put a welcoming smile on her face. "Oh, hi! They just went for coffees! I'm Susie, by the way!"

The man narrowed his eyes. He didn't move from the other side of the security console, and was too far away for Kim to reach him quickly. She would also get a slow start, sitting down with her legs under the desk. She started to stand up.

The new guard drew his gun in a smooth, well practiced move.

"Oh, no, you don't! You just stay where you are. And keep your hands where I can see them, away from the desk!"

Kim made her eyes go big and sorrowful. She tilted her head a bit and started slowly rolling the chair backwards.

"What? What's the matter? What's wrong?"

"You're wrong, for a start! You're sure as hell not supposed to be here! What have you done with Roddy and Dan?"

Kim started whining. "I haven't done nuttin to no Rod nor Dan! I'm just doing my job here, and you come in starting out all rude! Is it my fault you're a grumpy old man?"

"I'm as grumpy as I want to be when someone breaches security! You are not a guard. Who the hell are you, and what are you doing here?"

He had been holding his gun in a two-handed grip, but now he let go with his left hand, reaching for his radio instead. In just a few seconds, he would have alerted the entire bloody GJ to their presence.

At the moment the guard glanced at the radio to punch in a channel to call on, Kim threw herself down on the floor, under the desk. Shots immediately started slamming into the wood and the equipment of the console as the guard squeezed the trigger.

After a handful of shots, he made a pause.

"Come out of there, you! You have nowhere to go!"

Kim heard him starting to walk round the desk to get a clear shot at her. He was keeping his distance from the desk, denying her the chance to surprise him with a kick or hit.

Kim pressed herself up to the end of the desk closest to where the guard was coming from. She bent her legs and placed them against the office chair closest to her.

The chair was of the kind you could adjust in any number of ways. It stood on five small wheels, and the seat rested on a gas cylinder with a thick coiled spring, allowing you to easily move the seat up or down while sitting on it.

Kim quickly brought a small laser out of her pocket. It was not her usual lipstick laser, but one Shego had put together for her using the stuff in Drakken's lair.

Just as the guard rounded the desk, she kicked the chair as hard as she could. It went rolling across the floor at a good clip.

The guard had good reflexes. He managed to hit the chair with three bullets before it fell over and died. While he did this, however, Kim had time to bring her laser up and cut him across the hand holding the gun with it.

When he hissed and doubled up in pain over his injured hand, Kim launched herself like a 100 metres sprinter out of the starting blocks. Switching sports in mid-stride, she hit him with a tackle worthy of any American football player.

The man still kept his wits about him, though. As they both hit the floor, he thrust his elbow up under her chin, almost crushing the windpipe.

Kim in fighting mode was not unused to pain and injury. She deliberately reached out with her left hand and pushed sharply at the man's forehead. The back of his head impacted the floor with an audible crack.

The guard wasn't knocked out, however. He brought his knees up sharply into Kim's stomach, flipping her head over heels.

She landed hard on her side beside the man, who started getting up. He started reaching for her throat, possibly intent on strangling her into submission.

Just as his hands closed around her, though, she brought up the laser again.

"Uh-huh! I wouldn't do that if I were you!"

He hesitated. Kim switched the beam on and let it singe the badge on his shoulders.

"Back up!"

He obeyed cautiously.

"Turn around and stand by the wall!"

This time he needed a demonstration of what the laser could do to a stone floor before he complied.

"Spread your arms out!"

He did. Then she jabbed him hard at the nerve centres just under the left ear.

==##0##==

Bodge was driving like a maniac. That is, he drove at about 20 mph more than the speed limit, but that qualified as manic in his case. The two beers he had drunk didn't help matters. He was really not used to alcohol, and the car lurched all over the road.

When he reached the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge across the Potomac River, he had managed to attract the attention of no less than two police cruisers.

He panicked and floored it. The three cars sped into Washington, sirens wailing, heading towards the Donovan Street building of the Global Justice.

==##0##==

Shego worked quickly and efficiently, copying, printing and photographing all the records she could find in 'the vault'. There were signed minutes of all the meetings of the Board of Directors, as well as from the meetings of the Budget Committee, the Personnel Review Board, and the Council of Long-Term Planning. There were financial records, records of property deals, and a huge number of case files all marked red for top secret.

With some luck, they would get away with all they needed. Perhaps this was going to end well, after all?

==##0##==

Kim sat down by the security monitors again, heaving a sigh of relief. The unexpected guard had been a nasty surprise, and the fact that he was decently competent had been an extra chock. To her relief, however, the sitch was now under control again.

At that moment, the radio that the guard had dropped, and that had ended up sliding away from them in the fight, gave a burst of noise, and a tinny voice was heard.

"Jed, is that you? What's happening? Is everything all right at your end?"

==##0##==

A/N A chapter that is almost all action. Bodge continues to intrude in the storyline.

This was more difficult than the others. I went through it several times, trying to adjust the sequence of events so that it would make sense.

Anyway, leaving you with a minor cliff-hanger. More in a couple of days!


	21. Chapter 21

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

A/N: This is basically a continuation of chapter 20 and does not have its own 'introduction' with a description of Kim's feelings etc.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

"_Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win!_"  
Jonathan Kozol (1936 - )

**Chapter ****twenty-one, which cuts to the chase. **

Kim picked the radio up from the floor.

"Yeah, hi! This is Susie. The cleaner. I'm afraid there's been an accident, here …"

"An accident? What happened?"

"Well, I was kind of mopping the floor. It was all wet, like. And the guy just slipped and hit his head …"

"Jed slipped and hit his head? Look, what's your ID number?"

Shit. Kim, of course, had no idea.

"ID? Yeah, it's 457 34 96."

A click and a beep could clearly be heard over the radio link, as well as the sound of sudden talk and activity in the background.

"You sure that ain't you phone number, girl?"

Kim shut the radio off and hurried over to the control desk instead.

"Shego?" she called into a microphone on the console. "Get out of there! We're blown!"

The little Shego figure in the security monitor feed from the vault snapped her head up and made a thumbs up. Kim watched for a few seconds, just to make sure that Shego did in fact pack up and get ready to leave. She then flipped the cover from a big red button on the control console and pressed it decisively. A loud ringing instantly burst forth.

She pressed another switch and spoke into the microphone again.

"This is security. We have a fire alarm. This is not a drill; it is a real fire alarm. Please just stop working and leave the building. Do not stop to collect any belongings or valuables. Just stand up and leave. Do not use the elevators. Shut all doors behind you. I repeat, this is not a drill!"

She then pushed the janitor cart onto its side and dragged the first guard they had encountered out of the trash container. She propped him up against the wall by the main stairs down to the front door, and started collecting some company for him.

When she was done, three guards and a cleaning lady were sitting in a row, waiting to be carried outside.

People started arriving in the lobby. First to show up were two more cleaners.

"You!" Kim shouted." How many of you were working here tonight?"

"Well, us two. And Mary-Lou … "

"Good! Get her outside, will you! Quick, now!"

The older man that had been typing at his computer and the younger man reading reports came next.

"Grab a guard each and drag them outside!" Kim commanded in a no nonsense voice.

"Oh shit," the younger man complained. "They're kinda heavy, you know?"

"It wasn't a suggestion, it was an order! DO IT!"

They grumbled and obeyed while the elderly gentleman and the secretary showed up.

"You take the last guard and get him outside. We've got to evacuate the building!"

The man was not inclined to just quietly obey. "Why don't you help?"

"Just do it! I'm going to get everyone I see out, and then I'm going to do the rounds of the building to see if there is anyone left behind. Would you rather be doing that?"

That didn't seem to meet with the man's approval, either. The woman, however, kicked off her high heels and lifted the remaining guard in a fireman's grip. From the ease with which she did this, Kim started suspecting that she maybe wasn't just a secretary, but more of an active agent.

"Come on, Parker!" she said to the man. "Do as you're told, will you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

And perhaps the elderly man wasn't the high level commanding officer she had thought him to be, either.

The couple went down the stairs and out of the building just as Shego arrived on the scene.

"Wazzup, Princess?"

"They're all out, I think! Let's blow this joint!"

Shego gave Kim a small back-pack, and pulled the straps tight on the one she was carrying herself.

"Okay! I got loads of stuff, anyway!"

They stepped up to the security console, once again putting key cards in two different slots at either end of the desk. The Bodge default code was once again put to use. Kim reached out and grabbed the lever of a large knife switch. "Ready, Sheegs?"

Shego nodded and Kim threw the switch.

As in all spy movies and thrillers, a countdown appeared om a screen, and a new alarm was added to the clangour of the fire bells.

They turned towards the stairs and the front doors.

At that moment, however, a red Toyota crashed into the right-hand stone pillar by the gate in the fence. Two police cruisers came to squealing stops around it.

"What the fuck? The nerd called the cops down on us?"

"Shit! He must have struck lucky, thinking a smart thought for once."

The two women watched the scene unfold. The people from the Central Planning Unit were talking to the cops, gesticulating alternately at the unconscious guards and the building in general. The policemen, however, seemed more interested in apprehending Bodge.

"You know what, Pumpkin? I don't think he called them! They're traffic cops. I just think he picked them up with his crazy driving skills!

"They're still cops! And here comes the fire brigade!"

"Let's lock the doors, Princess, and we'll just take the back door!"

"Is there a back door?"

"Perhaps not as such, no. Don't worry, though! I can make us one!"

Kim flipped some switches on the panel on the security console. "Okay. Let's go!"

There _was_ a back door, a metal sheeted basement type door. The windows overlooking the street in the back of the building, however, showed more emergency vehicles from the fire brigade, as well as one or two police cars.

"Shit! Let's try the alley!"

There were no doors on the shorter sides of the building. They took the stairs up to the first floor.

"Hey, Shego! This is going to be a close call!"

"Yeah, Princess. Let's just find a room with a view and go through!"

The end of one of the long corridors ended in a right angle bend with an open door. As they ran towards it, the second alarm signal doubled in intensity and frequency.

"Shit, Pumpkin! Straight through!"

They ran into the empty office. Shego dove for the window head first, sending a blast of green plasma before her. Kim made a forward flip and approached the now shattering window frame in a tucked-in position.

To anyone watching from the outside it would have seemed like two figures shot out of the window in the crest of a green-tinged explosion. The forward momentum carried them over the wrought iron fence, although Kim had to launch herself over with a well-placed foot. It was a high and long jump, and they landed hard. Despite tucking and rolling with the impact, they bounced and sprawled somewhat painfully.

The instant they stopped rolling, the building exploded, flattening them to the ground again.

It did not look like big explosions do in action movies. There were no flames and not much smoke. There also was no drawn out sub-woofer bass sound , just a rapid sequence of sharp, dry bangs.

The building went down a bit like when a demolition crew handles a big old factory on an empty lot. The walls at the ground floor bulged outwards, and the rest of the house started sinking, almost intact until subsequent sets of explosions took out the walls higher up.

The building collapsed as if a giant had stepped on it. The roof settled, cracked but more or less intact, on a huge pile of bricks and rubble. The air filled with dust from mortar and plaster.

The fire crews and the police had been knocked flat. As hearing was regained, a lot of excited radio communications ensued. The less shaken and stirred started dragging their not so fortunate comrades away from the ruins. Luckily, nobody seemed to have entered the building before it blew.

"Wow! Let's do that again!"

"Let's _not, _Kimmie! You almost impaled yourself on the fucking fence! If you were to die, I'd be so angry I'd have to kill you!"

"Aw, Shego! I _always_ almost hurt myself. It's how it's done!"

"Well, in that case, you'll just have to stop doing it!"

Kim made a face. "I'm never allowed to have any fun!"

"You just had it! Now, shall we make a drive-by and wave to the nice GJ's?"

Kim clapped her hands excitedly! "Yay!"

==##0##==

The bike had been parked two blocks away. They made it quickly on foot, even though Kim limped a little. Shego pointedly did not say anything about it.

Making a detour round a couple of blocks they approached the scene of the explosions. Police and rescue services kept gathering, as well as other curious passers-by; some cab drivers, a few people on their way to start work early, and a couple of delivery vans.

There was also a large, black BMW, from which an elderly man with horn-rimmed glasses emerged.

"Look, Princess! Dr. Laibach! Bodge is gonna get a royal ear-full!"

They drove by at low speed, but without giving the impression they were going to stop. They had not put any helmets on as they counted on being recognized.

"Hi, Bodge!" Shego hollered. "Thanks for your help!"

Kim blew him a big kiss. "We sure had a nice time in the woods!" she shouted.

Bodge looked like fainting, while Laibach started gesticulating and speaking loudly. He had not managed to elicit any response from the police before Shego let the bike show what acceleration and speed it was capable off, and tore away down the street.

Kim had her head turned, looking back. "That sure stirred them up! Like poking an anthill with a stick!" she said smugly.

==##0##==

By mid morning, Kim and Shego were sitting in the Starbucks coffee shop of the M Street Barnes and Nobles book store.

After leaving the scene of their crimes, they had hidden the bike and spent some time out of sight themselves. A fifty dollar bill had given them access to the cardboard-and-blankets nest of an old, homeless woman for a couple of hours, and a very efficient way of hiding in plain sight.

Now they were nursing coffees and muffins, with a laptop each on the table before them. They looked entirely at home among the other guests in the bookstore coffee shop, studying, writing or reading in the calm surroundings. Famous writers drinking coffee were pictured on the wall behind them.

Shego was using her 'shegonator' as a computer modem, uploading the files she had gotten from the computers in the vault to Wade's system. Kim was copying files to MP3 players, USB memory sticks and other devices for multiple backups. She was just finishing loading stuff onto the hard disk of an iPod Classic.

"So, Shego, do you think we really got anything useful?"

"Well, Pumpkin, difficult to say, really. The juicy bits will need decryption, and everything will need to be carefully analyzed. It all depends on what they really committed to their records, and how they wrote it up. Perhaps we only managed to lift the bonus schemes and pension plans for senior management … "

"Shit. So we don't just walk into the nearest police station and hand it over? Or toss it in the lap of the Washington Post?"

"Princess, you know that was never the plan!"

"But it would have been such a nice surprise if we had been able to do that!" Kim whined.

"Sweetie, you know that would never work. The justice goons would have to many opportunities to suppress it, deny it and generally lean on the system!"

"So we do have to go through with the whole thing?"

"We do, if we want to bring the GJ down. We can still abort the mission, though, and slip away somewhere ..."

"Aw, fuck it!"

"Princess! Such language! Well, _do_ you want out?"

"You know I'll never give up!"

Shego sighed. "Yeah, I know! There's no 'give-up' widget installed in your Operating System, is there?"

"Nope! I added some extra gigabytes of 'Stubborn' and 'Crazy' instead. But that's why you love me, innit?"

"Yeah. Sometimes, though, I'd just like to download the 1.2 Service Pack with the upgrades for the Common Sense software … Still, crazy or not, you need to tell me that you want to go ahead! We have done the easy part, breaking and entering. Now's the chance to quit if you want to!"

"No, we do it! I'm ready!"

"Okay!" Shego looked at her watch. "So, we call Betsy and Nerd Support?"

"Yeah, go ahead!" Kim plugged a mobile phone hands-free set into her laptop and adjusted the earpiece in her ear. Shego did the same, and initiated an encrypted three-ways call.

"Betsy? Geek-master? You there?"

Their faces appeared on the interconnected laptop screens as they answered. Dr. Director was in the lair. Wade was using his mobile set-up, and could be seen sitting in the back of a van.

"Hallo, Wade! Dr. Director!" Kim greeted them.

"Hi, guys! Howzit hangin'?" Shego said.

"Er … quite so." Wade was obviously a bit confused by the salutation. "Well, it seems to be going well. The GJ is quite agitated. The Operational HQ has ramped up to a Code Red Alert. A lot of mobile units have been called in, and quite a few vehicles have shown up at the scene of your recent exploits."

"Who's in charge, do you think?"

"Oh, this goes right up to the top of the food chain. We intercepted communications to the Board of Directors. The Head of Operations, North America, is flying in from New York. Until he arrives, Operational HQ is in charge, working through a Commander Spanner who's on site at the ruins of the CPU."

"Oh, they're all hot and ready to go!"

"Just so, Pumpkin, Now, calm down!"

"Yes, please do," Dr. Director contributed. "They do seem to take this seriously. They must be assuming that you may have gotten hold of something really compromising. And they're scared!"

"So, Wade, are they looking for us? Are they making a house to house search?"

"Well, not really. They have some cars on the street, and also a civilian type helicopter in the air, but they are not very likely to find you that way."

"So, we need to help them a bit, right?"

"Yeah, but we need to time it smart. Here's what you should do ..."

==##0##==

Mobile Unit 5 made a left up onto the freeway, going slowly in the Saturday noon traffic.

The MobU 5 was a black Ford Explorer SUV with a crew of three. The driver was a well-muscled man in his early twenties. The observer in the front passenger seat was approaching the mid forties, and was built on slightly more generous lines, especially round the middle. The communications officer in the back seat was also in his forties, but thin and wiry. His job mainly consisted of calling dispatch every 15 minutes and reporting that they had seen nothing.

"Fucking hell!" the driver summarized his assessment of the situation. "I could have been at home, sleeping in and taking it easy! Instead I'm driving round at random in this goddam traffic! Totally bloody pointless! A complete waste of time!"

"Don't complain," his colleague in the front seat said. "This is soft work, just cruisin'! And you get overtime pay, don't you? Relax! Nothing will happen! It's easy money!"

"Well, shit, I'm glad I'm getting paid, but I'd like it better if we did something useful! I do wish something would happen!"

At that moment, the communications officer turned round and looked out of the rear window.

"Hey, guys! Green bike, two babes! One brunette, one red-head! Ring a bell?"

"Shit! Where? Where are they?"

"Just coming up from behind! They'll overtake us in a few seconds."

"Yes! We got them! Call it in as they go past, Ted, and we'll nab 'em!"

"No, we won't! We'll wait for backup so we're sure to get them!"

"Man, you're a waste of space! Wait for back-up? We get 'em, we get the glory!"

The bike drew level. The red-head pushed her sunglasses down on her nose and gave them an evil smile. The driver gave them the finger.

"The cheeky bitch! Don, get the gun up and the window down, for Pete's sake, and take them down!"

The bike surged ahead, however, with an acceleration the heavy SUV couldn't match. As it went past the front of the car, the red-head emptied a large cloth bag full of caltrops on the road in front of them. All four tires blew instantly, and the SUV made a close encounter with a lamp post. The air-bags deployed.

"Al, please let this be a lesson for you!" the older man in the front passenger seat said in a muffled voice. "Never, ever, wish for something to happen! Boring is _good_!"

==##0##==

The earpieces that Kim and Shego wore enabled them to talk to each other as well as to Wade and Dr. Director. Wade was currently informing them of the information he had gathered from watching satellite images and monitoring radio traffic.

"They are moving in to intercept you three junctions ahead! I doubt they'll shoot on sight, just yet!"

"Ah, but we will, right, Pumpkin?"

Kim did not answer, but removed the sawn-off shotgun they had used to scare Bodge from it's holster on the bike.

"There they are!" Shego said. "Now, mind that you don't shoot to the side or we'll overturn. Wait until I line us up!"

Kim gripped Shego's waist tightly with her right arm and brought the shotgun up in her left. Shego leaned the bike into a slight left turn across the lanes, disregarding the red lights and aiming straight for one of the black SUVs up ahead.

The driver of the car slammed the brakes as he found himself targeted, just as Kim blasted both barrels of the shotgun into the near-side front wheel.

Loosing a front wheel when braking hard is an invitation to disaster. The vehicle instantly went into an uncontrollable skid, going broadside first into the intersection before flipping over.

Shego put the bike into a sharp right turn to avoid the wreck and to get past the other SUV coming in from the right. Others were not as alert to the dangers of the situation, and the air was filled with honking horns and squealing tires. These noises faded seamlessly over into the sounds of metal crumpling and glass shattering.

The bike now met the second vehicle that had been supposed to stop them, but they were in separate lanes. Kim threw the now empty shotgun as hard as she could at the windscreen of the black SUV as they passed each other. The glass didn't break, but shattered into an opaque mosaic of shards. The front seat passenger started removing the glass by smashing it with the butt of his gun, but the temporary loss of forward visibility was enough to ensure the close acquaintance with the rear end of a brewery truck that had stopped in the intersection.

The green bike roared down the road, heading towards Constitution Avenue and the National Mall.

"Boojah, if I may be so bold," Wade said after a couple of minutes. "Commander Spanner just authorized the deployment of two of the black helicopter gunships. They've taken the bait!"

"I'd be a lot happier if the bait wasn't us," Kim muttered.

"Cheer up, Princess! We're guaranteed to make the headlines of the national news!"

"Yes, heads in the game, kids!" Dr. Director broke in. "This is all going according to plan, but you've got to stay in race until the chequered flag!"

"Oh, shut up with the metaphors, Betsy! We all know what to do, so let's do it!"

==##0##==

N/A. Another chapter that is almost all action. The story is coming into the home stretch and the final confrontation is just ahead. Sorry it took some time, I had a lot of things on my plate this week. Also, I wanted to participate in a challenge over on DeviantArt…

Oh, and I don't own Barnes and Nobles, or the Apple iPod, of course...


	22. Chapter 22

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

"_Another victory like this and we will be undone!_"  
Pyrrhus, King of Epirus and Macedon (318 – 272 b.c.)

**Chapter twenty-two, ****which ushers in the final confrontation. **

There are better circumstances for contemplating your situation and your choices in life than on the back of a motorcycle, being chased by the available resources of a paramilitary organisation, and Kim's brain had gone into mission mode, leaving all non-essential thoughts aside.

She could, however, not entirely exclude a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. This was a desperate attempt at fixing a disastrous situation, and so many things could still go wrong.

She was grateful that Shego was with her. It was a relief to be able to let the slightly older and more experienced woman assume the command of their mission and just do as she was told.

If she had thought about it more, she would have realized that there were very few persons she would trust so fully as to obey them like this. Her mother, perhaps? Yes, but not in a situation like this. The Dr. Director of a couple of years ago, when she still had confidence in the Global Justice organisation. Perhaps. Ron? No, she would have trusted his intentions and good will, but would not have been at ease with following his analyses and tactical decisions.

She did, however, trust Shego.

Some further thought might also have brought back the assessment Shego made, that the girl who could do anything, Kim Possible, was secretly longing to be a sidekick and handle the comic relief.

Well, she had certainly enjoyed not shouldering all the responsibility, and had profited by goofing off quite a lot more than usual.

Was that why she liked Shego so much? Was it just that she removed a heavy burden from the young woman's shoulders, and allowed her a little freedom for jokes and horseplay?

No. If she had had the time and inclination to put her thoughts in order, she would have realised that there was more to it than that.

As it was, however, she was not able to rationalise her thoughts and feelings. She just had a vague but all pervasive feeling of dread.

But now was not the moment to stop and think about it. Now was for action.

==##0##==

Commander Spanner sat in the mobile operational headquarter, inside a large black van parked by the ruins of the CPU. A truck with all sorts of computers and communications equipment was parked behind it, a thick bundle of cables joining the two vehicles. If they hadn't both been black and devoid of all text and logos, it would have looked like the mobile unit of a TV news channel.

Spanner was listening to the reports from the field. Head of Operations, North America, had still not arrived. Whatever the cause of the delay, Spanner was still in charge, and not very pleased about it. He had a feeling that, whatever he did, he would be blamed for anything that went wrong.

He turned to his two colleagues, Captain Hammer and Lieutenant Banner, but had little hope of getting any real support from them.

"So, they have escaped three of the MobU's so far, correct?"

"Yes, Sir. Correct".

"And they're heading for the Mall, on a bike, with whatever they stole from the Vault in the CPU?"

"Affirmative, Sir. As far as we know, Sir!"

"And we don't know exactly what they took? Only that there were all sorts of rather … 'sensitive' … information in the Vault? It might be noting, and it might be the full records of the Covert Operations Chief of Staff?"

"That is true, Sir!"

"Hm … All right. There are usually not all that many people on the Mall itself, just tourists at the different monuments. It's an open and accessible area without much cover or places to hide. If we can put a road block on Constitution Avenue, we can force them out on to the lawn. Then the two helicopters can just go in and extract them. Sound good to you?"

"It's your call, Sir!"

"Right! Do it! And if you can't get them out, just blow them to smithereens!"

Commander Spanner tried his best to feel confident. After all, with all the resources of the GJ, what could go wrong?

==##0##==

The National Mall in Washington D.C. is an almost 3 kilometres long national park stretching from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. Constitution Avenue runs along the northern edge of it, and Independence Avenue along the south. The numerous monuments and landmarks make it a popular tourist attraction as well as an attractive spot for jogging and picnics.

This particular Saturday was a nice autumn day. The sun shone from a nearly cloudless sky. A slight breeze urged the yellow and red leaves remaining on the trees to take the plunge and join their less tenacious comrades in a swirling dance along the ground. The air was cool but not cold.

The setting and the weather contributed to the number of people had gathered for the day's main event, the Earth Day Rally.

==##0##==

Greg Arios stood on the steps to the Lincoln Memorial and looked out over the crowd. Everything was going well. People were waiting expectantly and in good order. Security was satisfactory. There were as yet no visitors to the medical station. Everything seemed to go smoothly.

In just a few minutes, the first speaker of the Earth Day Rally would start his address.

There were former vice presidents, Nobel laureates, politicians, scientists and industry leaders waiting. There were also rock musicians and film stars, super models and athletes, as well as a few people being famous just for being famous.

It was the largest manifestation in many years, and it was Greg's job to see to it that authorities that had given the permission to go ahead did not have any reason to regret their decision.

He thought it would be all right. After all, he had a sizable part of the Washington D.C. Police department at hand, as well as paramedics and security personnel assigned to each of the celebrity speakers.

Even the weather was perfect. With such planning and such resources, what could go wrong?

==##0##==

The GJ mobile operational headquarter was speeding towards the National Mall, and Commander Spanner had fastened his seatbelt. He was still in radio contact with all the GJ units deployed, and was closely following the developments.

"H9 to base, H9 to base!"

"Come in, Helicopter 9!"

"Have to report, Sir, that the target vehicle did avoid the Constitution Avenue road block. They took to the sidewalk, and are now heading towards the Washington Monument in the mall itself!"

"Good. Can you intercept?"

"Affirmative, Sir, but there's … "

"No 'buts'! Just do it!"

The answer was a bit slow, but when it came, it was as expected: "Yes, Sir!"

==##0##==

It was time. The moderator for the first part of the afternoon stepped forward to introduce the first speaker, the UNPCC chair. The chatter of the audience died away in anticipation. Another noise, however, intruded.

Greg ran over to the technicians at the PA system mixer board.

"I thought you'd have done a proper sound check!" he snapped. "What's that bloody noise?"

"It's not the PA, Mr. Arios! It's them!"

He followed the pointing finger. Two very large, black helicopters were coming in low over the Reflection Pool. Black with no markings whatsoever except H8 and H9 on the underside of the respective fuselages.

The head of the Washington P.D. security team came running over, talking urgently into his communications radio. "Yeah, patch me through on whatever damn frequency you please! I need to talk to these fuckers!"

The moderator on the stage tried to control the situation. "Let's just wait until the helicopters leave, and we'll start this unique manifestation! Just stay calm, everyone!"

The large crowd was mostly curious. Everyone had turned round to see what was happening, and were thus able to immediately spot a green motorbike speeding down one of the paths from Constitution Avenue, even if it was quite far away, by the Washington Monument at the other side of the Reflection Pool.

One of the choppers touched down on the path, and opened fire with a machine gun. A dozen men in what appeared to be full battle dress emerged from the big doors in the back of the chopper.

Greg Arios stared in desperation. The biggest event he had ever coordinated. Planned to perfection. Just about to start. He couldn't believe his eyes. It was a bloody war movie being enacted! And all his work fell to pieces.

The bodyguards and security personnel of all the dignitaries of the Climate Manifestation instantly jumped into action. While most of them just bundled their respective charges away to the back of the Lincoln Memorial, some joined the police in advancing towards the pool, trying to intercept whatever disturbance this would turn out to be.

The bike, meanwhile, had abandoned the path and was now heading towards the crowd and the stage, driving in a zigzag pattern over the lawn along the north side of the Reflection Pool. A black SUV appeared to be in pursuit, but finding the lawn quite slippery for high speed chases.

The Police Officer shouted into his radio. "Unidentified aircraft, vacate the area immediately! Vacate the area. GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE NOW!"

Mr. Arios grabbed a microphone and tried to address the crowd over the PA. "Please stay calm and start walking in the direction of the Korean War Veteran Monument! Just take it easy. We'll soon be able to resume the programme!"

At that moment, the bike made a 180 degree turn and headed back towards the pursuing SUV. Something looking like a green laser beam shot out, and the entire front of the vehicle exploded. Another beam leaped out to hit the tail rotor of the helicopter that had landed on the roadway. It took just a second or two, then the bike continued its turn and resumed heading for the steps below the Lincoln Memorial.

==##0##==

"Sir, the H9 is down!"

"Who's this? Identification, please!"

"Sir, this is H8 reporting that the H9 is down. And the MobU pursuing has been … damaged, Sir."

"What do you mean, damaged? And why shouldn't H9 be down? It was supposed to land, wasn't it?"

"Yes, Sir, but it's been taken out. It's out of operation, Sir. And so is the MobU!"

"Taken out? With what?"

"Don't know, Sir. Some kind of laser weapon, it looked like. And the SUV just … exploded."

Shit. This was getting out of hand. "H8, can you take the targets out from the air?"

"Yes, Sir. But there are civilians in the area, Sir."

"Well, do it quickly and neatly, then! Any problems with that?"

"Order confirmed, Sir. Will effectuate!"

==##0##==

The black helicopter that was still in the air made a wide turn and came in low over the Reflection Pool. To the pilot, doing it neatly meant not shooting in the direction of the crowds at Lincoln Memorial, risking injuries to innocents, but coming in at right angles to the mall.

It also meant making a reasonably quick pass, because many of the policemen had now opened fire with handguns and the occasional rifle. While this did not pose any serious threat to the helicopter gunship, it seemed smart to avoid even the smallest chance of a hit in something vital enough to bring them down.

The front gunner opened fire with the main cannons as soon as he had the bike speeding along the lawn in his sight. Unfortunately, the first shots hit the water at the edge of the pool, sending up an enormous fountain of water, dirt and vapour, making it difficult for him to see the target.

The pilot took the chopper up to go round for another pass.

The police and the various security teams on the ground were getting nervous. They seemed to have a very serious situation on hand. While they couldn't really distinguish which were the good guys and which were the villains, it was absolutely clear that the cannon and machine gun fire from unmarked helicopter gunships could not be tolerated in the area they were ordered to keep secure.

The small arms fire from the police didn't have much effect. A team of security and body guards for one of the more famous rap artists that were to appear later in the day had however come prepared for anything. They drove a bright red Hummer with a sunroof. A massively big man stood in the opening, wielding a high-velocity light machine gun in his large hands. Inspired, perhaps, by the way the other helicopter had been neutralized, he directed his fire at the tail rotor as the chopper came back in over the pool.

Loosing the tail rotor in flight is the end of the road. The helicopter itself starts spinning in the opposite direction to the rotor blades, a spinning that will only increase in speed until the aircraft goes totally out of control. The pilot of H8 knew he had no chance of flying away from the situation. He killed the main engine and dropped the helicopter from it's ten metres of altitude straight into the pool before anything worse could happen.

The pool was not deep, but the helicopter hit badly and tipped over. The rotor blades snapped as soon as they spun into the bottom of the pool, ricocheting away like giant javelins.

It was not a block-buster action movie, so nothing exploded. Again, however, dirt, water and steam erupted spectacularly high in the air.

Most of the armed men that had emerged from the first helicopter hesitated and threw their arms rifles down in the face of the carnage. The few that pressed on, intent on taking out the riders of the green bike, reassessed their plans as a surprising number of police cruisers poured into the park from all directions. It would have been possible to carry on and kill the targets, but with the helicopters taken out, there was little chance of an orderly withdrawal. They would be apprehended one way or the other, and none of them fancied adding to their troubles by killing someone in front of several thousand witnesses.

==##0##==

After the noise of cannon and machine gun fire, and after the sounds of the helicopter crash had died down, a strange calm fell over the site. The numerous sirens of the many police cruisers that continued to arrive only served to accentuate the sudden calm.

Almost all movement had momentarily ceased. The bike had been blown to bits. The two helicopters were down. The squad of armed men that had emerged from the first chopper stood still, raising there hands in surrender. The cars of the police and the different security teams came to a halt on the lawn.

Kim and Shego had thrown themselves off the bike just as the first shots from the cannon hit the water in the Reflection Pool. They had run in opposite directions to get away from the line of fire.

Now Kim stood about ten metres behind the hole in the ground that marked the last known location of their vehicle. She looked apprehensively through the dust and mist, looking for Shego.

Shego turned out to have made it about the equal distance forward of the crater were the bike had been. As soon as she spotted her, Kim started running, waving and shouting. Shego waved back in response. She did not, however, stand up but remained on the ground.

"Shego! Are you all right?"

"It's OK, Princess. Just a few minor things ... "

"Shego! Don't lie to me! Let me see!"

Kim threw herself down to kneel beside her companion. With the help of a number of policemen they managed to get Shego to lie down for an examination.

It was soon evident that she was far from fine. Luckily, the rally had had medical personnel at hand. Although they had mainly been concerned with people fainting in the crowd, the EMT that soon arrived at the scene was prepared to treat other injuries as well.

"I'm not sure that you appreciate it, but you were very lucky," he said. "If that piece of metal had struck just a few inches up and to the left, you'd have been decapitated. Now, your shoulder's is in a sorry mess, but we should be able to save your arm if we get you to hospital quickly enough."

"Oh, Shego!" Kim was crying, tears flowing almost silently down her cheeks. "This wasn't supposed to happen. You weren't supposed to get hurt like this!"

"Relax, Princess," Shego said through clenched teeth. "It hurts like hell, but you heard the man! It's going to be all right! And it's all going according to plan! Now, you just have to do the rest! Take the bags and find someone in charge to tell them what's going on."

Kim reached out and caressed Shego's cheek. "Can you manage?"

"Sure, Kim! I've had worse! Just do your bit!" She reached up and took Kim's hand in her own for a while. A number of camera flashes went off. The journalists that had been there to cover the Earth Day Rally were busy gathering material for the scoop of a lifetime, taking photos of everything they saw.

Kim stood up with both back-packs in her hand. "So, who's in charge, here?"

==##0##==

It turned out to take a surprising amount of time to answer the seemingly simple question. One Mr. Aries proclaimed himself to be in overall charge of the arrangements at the Lincoln Memorial. The Lieutenant in charge of the police present at the site announced himself to have the situation under control. The National Park Administration people took issue with this, while the Chief of the Rescue Services wanted everyone to shut up so he could do his job. An officer from the Air Force wanted to take command as it had clearly been an act of military aggression, while the Federal Aviation Administration wanted everybody to evacuate the scene of the crash so that they could investigate the causes.

In the middle of it all, Commander Spanner arrived and made the mistake of putting his claim in. Claiming to be the commanding officer of the people in the black helicopters quickly proved to make him extremely unpopular. He had also not counted on the sheer number of different government agencies present, and soon found himself outranked by both the FBI and the CIA.

Even they had to bow down, though, when a number of men in black suites from the Department of Justice showed up.

==##0##==

Kim ended up talking to a middle-aged man who claimed to be with the DoJ, while the rest of the crowd took their arguments elsewhere. Kim sat down in the open tailgate of a silver Chevrolet Tahoe that the DoJ man had arrived in.

He was brief and to the point. "So, care to explain?" he said.

Kim had been preparing just for this. Now that the GJ Covert Operations had been caught doing something very much in the open, she had the opportunity they wanted. By taunting the GJ to expose themselves like this, Kim and Shego had assured themselves of a high level contact for their information, and made it impossible for the GJ to cover anything up. Several thousands had seen their clandestine strike forces in operation. Three television networks had been broadcasting live from the Rally. A number of authorities ranging from the National Park administration to the Justice Department where at hand to try to sort things out.

"So, here's all the documentation," Kim finished her tale. "I know it may seem hard to believe, but you can see for yourself that there is substance in our accusations. And the most incredible thing of all is really that they allowed themselves to panic and come out in force like this. That alone should be enough to convince you that there are some major things here they want to conceal"

"And for the record, why didn't you just come to the authorities with your information?"

"Yes, assuming we had been able to get someone to listen, what good would that have been. Anything we could have said, the GJ would just have denied. This way, we could all see them at work."

The alleged Deputy Secretary handed the back-packs to a slightly younger black suite in silence. After a moment of contemplation, his only reaction was "I see." Then he stood up, brushing off his clothes to remove any dust that might have adhered to him through sitting in the back of a SUV.

"You need to come with me. Other people will wrap this up and we'll see what emerges."

"And … my friend?"

"Well, as you can see, there's an ambulance helicopter here to take her to hospital. Just let them do their job, and we'll talk to her later!"

Kim could see Shego being lifted on to a stretcher to be taken to hospital by air once again, just like a couple of weeks ago after the incident at the power lines. An EMT in green overalls guided the stretcher up into a white helicopter with red cross markings. Shego waved, and so did the pilot of the helicopter. Kim blew a kiss at the pale woman before being marched way with an escort of serious-looking men in black suites.

==##0##==

Kim spent the night in what looked like a hotel room, except that it was situated inside an office complex belonging to the DoJ.

She got a wake-up call and breakfast at eight a.m. Twenty minutes later, the man from the DoJ she had been talking to the day before came to see her. He was accompanied by an elderly man in the dress uniform of an army general, and a tired looking man in a trench coat and a rumpled suite.

The visitors sat down while Kim finished the last of her meal.

"So," the DoJ man said without further introduction, "you were right."

"I know," Kim said without false modesty.

"Well, now, we also know. The documents on the various disks and flash memory devices were mostly budgets and administration data, but some were minutes of the Board of Directors of the Global Justice, and a lot of them were minutes from what was called the Committee on Active Operations. These turned out to be very … interesting."

"We have more then fifty men belonging to the GJ in custody, too, "the army general said. "The crews and operatives of the two helicopter gun ships, a number of agents that turned up in cars and vans, and a certain Commander Spanner. It turns out that most of these have little interest in being loyal to their organisation once the chips were down."

"So we know what has happened," the third man said. "Oh, not all of it, but quite enough to make a start at disbanding this operation. However … "

Kim waited patiently.

"Yes," the man from the Justice Department took over. "Quite so. However … the circumstances are somewhat unfortunate. It turns out that the Board of Directors either knew and condoned the creation of this Covert Operations part of the GJ, or, at best, they must have suspected it but failed to take any measures to investigate and shut it down."

"Also," the general took over, "the members of the Committee on Active Operations are not just anybody. There are a number of fairly public and important figures, there. People whose actions on the Committee are blatantly at odds with their public offices."

Kim just looked at them.

"Hrm ... yes," the third man said. "Like a couple of supreme court judges, a chief of police, an officer in the navy, a former secretary of state and … a former head of the CIA."

"And this means?" Kim prompted.

"This means that this will have to be resolved discretely."

"Yes, discretely!" the other two echoed.

"I see. Meaning exactly what?"

"It means that this will be blamed on the misguided actions of one single person. Commander Du, for instance."

"But, he's dead?"

"Yes. Unfortunately, he seems to have been killed when the helicopter crashed in the Reflection Pond."

"And all the others that were responsible for this?"

"Oh, they will be removed from their positions as occasion arises. They will all be quietly … retired … to some harmless postings. Ambassador to Luxembourg, for instance."

"And all the bases, weapons, fighter aircrafts?"

"Oh, there never were any secret bases. No military resources at all, except what we saw yesterday."

"What!?"

"Yes, and if there had been any, it would just be reallocated to more responsible agencies. The CIA, perhaps. Or the navy S.E.A.L.s."

"So, this will just be hushed up?"

"Yes. For the stability of our institutions and our constitution."

"How reassuring."

"Look, what did you think would happen? You blew the whistle and we're going to stop the … abuse of the system. You will be off the hook. The GJ Covert Operations will cease to exist. Would you also like to bring down the government, perhaps? Or bring the supreme court into disrepute. Perhaps dismantle all our security services while you're at it?"

"Well, it wouldn't be me, would it? They'd be bringing it onto themselves!"

"Look, when there is a financial crisis because people in the banking sector make stupid decisions, the government has to step in and save the day. Why? Because the functioning of the financial system is more important than letting banks with stupid CEO's take the fall. And when a part of our security and law enforcement system runs amok, the government should do what, in your opinion. And why?"

"Okay, okay, I get it. The system is more important than bringing the persons responsible to justice!"

"Quite so."

Kim thought for a while. "And … what about me?"

"Well, we have an offer for you." He took a folder of papers out of his briefcase and put it on the table. "This is a declaration of confidentiality we would like you to sign. It states that, as far as you know, the official version is correct, and that you know nothing more about it at all. It also states, of course, that you promise not to disclose anything at all to the public, now or in the future. In recognition of this, you will receive the remuneration specified in §7. As you can see, it will make you a rather rich young girl."

"As you say, quite so. And all my criminal records will be removed?"

"Of course."

"And Ms McGowan?"

"Who?"

"Siobhán McGowan. My girlfriend?"

"Ah, Shego... "

"Yes, Shego. Does she get the same deal."

"Eh … we would in fact be reluctant to try the same approach in her case. You see, this is all a matter of trust. By signing the declaration and accepting the money, we feel you can be trusted to act … responsibly … in the future. Whereas Ms. Shego … let us say, her past record is not one to inspire any high degree of trust. And she did kill that man at the hospital. And Commander Du ..."

"So she'll be put in prison? Or what?"

There was an awkward silence.

"Well, in fact, that would in the circumstances be a rather hypothetical question … "

"_What _are you saying?"

The man from the DoJ decided to just make it blunt. "Ms Possible, I'm afraid the helicopter never reached the hospital. We do not really know what happened. It might have just crashed. Or perhaps some of the GJ agents were still acting on orders to take you out. I'm afraid your friend is dead."

Kim just looked at him for a long while. "But what would have been the point of that?2 she eventually said. "You already had me!" What would be the point of killing Shego?"

The DoJ man shrugged. "Well, who knows. And as I said, it might have been an ordinary accident. Anyway, the helicopter caught fire on impact, and there's not much left that could tell us what really happened."

Kim stood up and turned her back on the three men.

"How convenient for you," she said at last.

"What are you implying? A pilot and a medic were killed in that accident, as well as your accomplice. It's all very tragic, and has noting at all to do with us!"

Kim turned around. "Double the sum!"

"What?"

"Double the sum! I'll be taking Shego's share, too. And I'll sign your fucking paper. But if, after that, I as much as much as suspect any interference in my life from any government agencies whatsoever, you'll personally regret it. You see, I'm more concerned with exacting justice from the people I actually hold responsible than with the stability of the system!"

The man from the DoJ looked her in the eyes without flinching under the implied threat. "Quiet so. Double the sum. We'll even throw in an airplane ticket back to Middleton for you. Just sign here."

And Kim signed, putting an end to a desperate mission to right the wrongs and clear her name. And Shego's.

The three men gathered their things and left.

==##0##==

N/A. Penultimate chapter. This is really bad, I know. I did say it would be dark. BUT – please read also the next chapter before you kill me.


	23. Chapter 23

Kim Possible and associated characters are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

Sorry for the delay. I unexpectedly had to spend some time in hospital for surgery, and have just sort gotten back into doing anything at all.

**HIDDEN AGENDA**

"_I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."_

Bill Cosby (1937 - )

**Chapter twenty-three, being essentially an epilogue. **

James T. Possible, Ph.D., wished he could be a calm pillar of strength for his wife.

He was however quite nervous, and wishing he wasn't didn't help,

They were at Middleton airport to meet their daughter. It would be the first time in about one and a half months that they would have direct contact with her, and Mr. Dr. Possible was worried.

They had had some indirect communications through Kimmie's friend Wade, and later also through Joss. From these short messages, they had known that she had been alive and reasonably well. However, they had also had almost daily contacts with the police and the Global Justice telling them that Kim was a wanted criminal and that she would be hunted down as a terrorist.

They had been expecting every telephone call to be the one that told them that their daughter was dead. Or that she was in custody, awaiting a trial that would probably result in a very long prison sentence.

The news that filled the TV channels and the newspapers for the last two days were their first indication that their prayers had been answered and that there seemed to be a happy ending to the drama.

The first call directly from Kim had, however, shown them that their daughter was far from satisfied with the outcome. Her name was cleared and all charges had been withdrawn. Some sort of cleanup was being made regarding the Global Justice. But Kim herself had seemed oddly withdrawn and uncommunicative.

It was from the TV news they learned that Shego was dead. James and Anne Possible knew Shego. They had met her and remembered her mainly from her stay as Miss Go. From the friendly way their Kimmiecub had interacted with the exotic woman, they had actually gotten a good impression of her. The stories Kimmie had told about all their fighting and their rivalry had seemed oddly unrealistic in face of the sweet personality of the temporary teacher.

They were not surprised that Kim was depressed about her death. They were, however, more worried that Kim herself had been injured or that the events of the past months had somehow destroyed her inner strength. Mrs. Possible knew what traumatic stress could do to a young person and they feared that their daughter would return to them with the equivalent of shell shock or Gulf War Syndrome.

Mrs. Dr. Possible was clearly nervous as she waited in the V.I.P. lounge at the airport. James Possible, however, was even more distressed. Instead of being the bridge over troubled waters for his wife, his constant pacing and muttering only served to make her irritated.

James Possible was nervous. Would the person that was returning to them still be his Kimmiecub, or would it be a stranger?

==##0##==

In order to avoid reporters, Kim would not be coming through the usual exit from her flight. Accordingly, a number of people were waiting for her in the VIP lounge. The Dr.'s Possible were there of course, as were the Tweebs. Wade and Dr. Director were also present, as were Joss and Slim Possible. Ron and Monique had returned from France and had also turned up to meet their friend. Even Rufus was there, resting in a small cage.

The Middleton Chief of Police had also put in an appearance, probably to try to distance himself and his department from the action they had taken in support of the GJ. The most surprising members of the welcome committee were Bonnie and Tara.

A number of television screens in the lounge were tuned to a news channel. Even though it was now around noon on the Monday, the events at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday afternoon were still the headline story for all networks.

The Universal News Channel was at the moment interviewing some sort of expert. The field of expertise of the distinguished gentleman in the studio was not immediately apparent, although it obviously included the ability and willingness to listen to his own voice.

"So tell me, Dr. Pundit, what do you make of the lack of concrete information from government sources so far?"

"Well, you see, in situations like this, I would be more worried if there were a lot of information. That would, in my considerable experience, indicate that the situation was serious indeed, serious enough to merit elaborate disinformation."

The news anchor nodded in awe. "So the very lack of information... ?"

"... indicates to me that the situation is under control. My analysis convinces me that the little being said is, if not correct so at least not intentionally misleading."

"So you do not think that there was any danger of a military coup against the government? Or that there was any truth in rumours of a powerful secret security organisation with its own hidden agenda"?

"No, no. Quite out of the question. That sort of thing could never grow so big as to be really dangerous without the checks and regulations of the system reacting!"

"So, it really was a rogue officer in a position of trust that went rogue and gathered a smell entourage of followers?"

"In my mind, everything supports that hypothesis."

"And the actions of the former hero Kim Possible and her associate?"

"Well, dramatic to be sure. And I do believe they did what they did with the best intentions. But in the end, it led to an entirely unnecessary confrontation which cost Ms. Shego her life and also killed the officer responsible for the unsanctioned activities of the Global Justice. It would have been much better if they had not treated this as another of their flamboyant little adventures, but had just approached the proper authorities with their concerns."

"Thank you, Dr. Pundit. Now, this is UNC going live to the scene of the Battle of the Reflection Pool. With us now is ..."

"Oh, for heavens sake! Is there no way to shut those things off! I'll go crazy if I have to listen to another expert!"

"Calm down, James. Just ignore it."

"But can't you hear what they are saying? That it was all a small misunderstanding and that Kimmie overreacted and turned it into a major crisis?"

"James, just give it a rest. We know what the GJ did and how they treated us in their attempt to get to Kim. We know it wasn't some minor incident but a really dangerous situation. But the government and the media have their own assessment, and we can't do anything about it."

"Your wife is right, Dr. Possible," Dr. Director said. "It doesn't really matter what the spin doctors make of it. We know what the stakes were and that your daughter, once again, did the impossible to fix the situation."

James took in a breath to argue his point of view, but gave up. Muttering incoherently, he resumed his pacing.

"Let him alone, Anne," Dr. Director said. "The flight is approaching and Kim will soon be here anyway,"

Wade had a more practical contribution to easing the mind of the rocket scientist, and pointed what looked like his mobile phone at one of the TV screens, causing them all to change to MTV.

==##0##==

Most of the welcoming party walked over to the windows to watch the plane land, and to see a black limousine pick passengers up from the rear exit of the plane, before the others were allowed to exit through the mobile ramp at the front of the plane.

They all turned to the doors, waiting. The first person to enter was a complete surprise, though.

"Drew!" Dr. Possible exclaimed.

"Dr. Drakken!" Ron shouted.

The pale blue scientist was walking between two young men in uniform, attended by a woman with a bag of medical equipment. He looked in confusion at the people gathered in the lounge.

"Drew Lipsky, yes," Dr. Director said. "He was found in one of the GJ facilities and we had him released. I'm afraid he hasn't been very well treated."

"No, " the medical attendant said, "so don't stress him, or we'll just have to change his trousers, again."

The people gathered in the lounge watched in silence as the evil scientist, world saviour and kidnap victim was led through.

"He will spend some time at the Upperton Clinic," said Dr. Director. "We hope he will recover, but only time will tell."

As the doors closed behind Dr. Lipsky, the arrivals door opened again, and there stood Kim Possible.

"Kim!" Mrs. Dr. P. shouted, running up to give her daughter a hug. "Kimmie! Oh, I thought I'd never see you again!"

Her father joined in the hug, and the others gathered round.

"Hi, guys!" Kim said, removing her sunglasses. "Nice to be back!"

Her mother almost flinched. It was so very much her Kimmiecub, but her eyes had a look she had never seen before. She looked hard and vulnerable at the same time. Something seemed to be lost and instead there was this strange detachment, as if she had erected barriers to the rest of the world. Living rather in her own internal sorrow.

Mrs. P. broke down and cried.

"Hush, Mom!" Kim said, patting the elder redhead on the back. "It's going to be OK! Please don't cry!"

An airport employee walked up to the group and nervously cleared her throat. "Excuse me, Miss, did you have any luggage?"

Kim looked over the shoulder of her mother. "No, just my carry-on bags."

"In that case, we are ready for you. We'll just take the lift down to the parking garage and there'll be a limo waiting for you."

"But, Kimmie," said James Possible, "won't you be coming in our car?"

"Don't worry, Dad, it'll be quicker this way. It's all been arranged in order to let me pick up a package on the way home!"

"Well, if you say so..."

Kim raised her voice to address all in the lounge. "Hey, listen up! I've already booked the private dining room at the Upperton Ritz Hotel for tomorrow night at seven. I would very much like to see you all there for dinner, and we can all talk. Tonight, though, I'm a bit tired so all I really need is to go home and rest!"

Kim hugged her parents one more time, and the walked towards the lift in the company of the ground staff stewardess. She nodded and greeted everyone on her way, and slapped Ron on the shoulder. "See ya' later, Ron! Hi, Ruf'! Tomorrow, GF!"

And then she stepped into the elevator and was gone.

"O..kay? That was weird!" Ron said to the room in general. "I guess she's been through a lot, right?"

"That's certainly true," Dr. Director said. "Come on, she'll tell you all about it tomorrow!"

"Do you think she meant for us to come to dinner, too?" Tara whispered to Bonnie, who still stood clutching a small bouquet of flowers.

Wade walked by and gave them each a card. "I'm sure she did. See? Seven o'clock at the Ritz. Nothing formal, just a nice dinner!"

Joss circled the room and passed out invitations to the others as well.

James walked over to his brother Slim. "She has this all planned out, hasn't she?"

"That she has. I'm not in on it, but Joss and Wade sure know what's going on."

"Well, let's just go home then, shall we?"

==##0##==

Joss was staying with Wade, while Dr. Director had already booked a room at the Upperton Ritz. Slim was staying at the Possible house, and went in the car with James, Anne and the Tweebs.

The Possibles had not been back for more than 20 minutes before Kim's limo drove up. The driver and a man in fatigues helped her carry a big metal trunk into the garage before shaking her hand and driving off.

Anne had prepared a lot of food for a cold buffet meal, in case Kim had wanted to invite people over. They made an early dinner of it, before Kim retired to her old bedroom.

Her parents worried about her not talking to them, but decided to give her some space. James thought she was mainly bothered by the way the news and the government made Kim look like a well-intentioned but naive do-gooder. Anne suspected it could have more to do with the loss of the Shego woman. She knew that it wasn't exactly correct, but couldn't help thinking of Shego in terms of the Miss Go that had stayed at their house a couple of years ago.

The next day, Kim slept late, but was up and about at noon when the doorbell sounded.

A man in a chequered blazer and an ugly tie was waiting on the porch, a clipboard in his hand.

"Is this the correct address for Miss Kim Possible?" he asked.

"Yeah, that's me!"

"Fine! We have your car here for you. Do you want to test drive it first, or shall we just start with the paperwork?"

"Nah, that's all right. I know what I'm buying. Where do I sign?"

Slim, James and the Tweebs pushed past them to have a look at the car while Kim finished the legalities. When the salesman had handed her the keys and walked over to a waiting cab, Kim went to inspect her purchase.

"Wow, Sis! That's a ..."

"... serious set of wheels!"

"Looks a bit … utilitarian, Kimmiecub. What is it?"

"It's a Land Rover Defender 110. Special import. The original customer changed his mind."

"Mh-hm. Well, I'm sure it's a good little car, but why do you need one like this? Looks like army surplus to me!"

"Now, Dad, don't diss my ride! I'll tell you tonight."

"Well, girl," Slim said, "if you change your mind, I can buy it from you! Looks perfect for the farm!"

==##0##==

The Upperton Ritz was a rather expensive hotel and the restaurant was not any cheaper. Service in the private dining room also came at a premium, but Kim wanted to have the dinner in privacy.

There were quite a few guests. Apart from the Possible family, including Joss and Slim, Mr. And Mrs. Stoppable were there, as well as Ron, Monique, Wade and Elizabeth Director. The chief of police had declined the invitation, but Bonnie and Tara showed up. Kim had also invited Felix Renton, Vivian Porter and Josh Mankey. To Ron's dismay, even Mr. Barkin was present.

The food, on the other hand, was a delight for Ron. The Ritz had a sort of international but slightly French cuisine. A wide choice of welcome drinks (Champagne and Kir as well as alcohol free alternatives) was accompanied by small canapés. The hors d'oeuvres of Gratinée de Coquille St Jacques were followed by a small dish of fried trout. The main course was Tournedos Rossini with Pommes Chateaux. A small selection of cheeses preceded the dessert of Île Flotant. The different dishes all had their separate selection of wines, and a Trou Normand (a small glass of Calvados to cleanse the palate) was offered between the main course and the cheese. The Tweebs were gently persuaded to refrain from asking for Coke, and had had to settle for bottles of Perrier.

The sheer amount of cutlery and glasses of different sizes made everyone but Kim. Ron and Monique nervous. Ron and Monique surprised all the guests by using their knives and forks in the European manner.

It was a fantastic meal, and while the assembled guests had been a bit hesitant at first, the good food and wine soon contributed to an unexpectedly relaxed atmosphere.

Between the cheese and the dessert, Kim stepped out of the room for a few minutes. When she came back, she was strangely enough wearing her sunglasses again. She walked up to her place at the table and tapped a spoon against an empty glass. The conversation in the room quickly died. Everyone had waited to hear what Kim would be telling them.

"Mum, Dad, friends," she started. "I have a few things I need to say.

"First, I am very happy to see you all here tonight, and would like to start by proposing a toast to all of you, as well as a few absent friends! Thank you for coming!"

Everyone raised their glasses.

"Secondly, I'm going to say a few words about what just happened. Not much, because you have all seen the news and heard the government. And it's all true. I have nothing to add.

"I do have a few comments, though. I hope this will help explain some of the things I'm going to say later.

"I've been headline news for several days now. This is more than I ever used to get when I saved the world from the crazy guys, and I don't think I like it. Furthermore, my judgement and my decisions have been questioned to an extent I'm not used to. Oh, don't get me wrong. I can handle criticism and even resentment if I make mistakes. That's OK. What I now find, though, is that a large part of the media is showing me as somewhat childish and unbalanced. Believe you me, that's not the case. But I'm not at liberty to discuss the matter or to tell the whole story. And I like that even less.

"Also, this was by far the worst sitch I have ever been in. I'm no stranger to danger, and I'm quite used to lunatic villains trying to hurt me or even kill me. That's all right. It's just a part of the challenge. And even when they put me in their elaborate death traps, people like Drakken or Duff Killigan are kind of cute.

"This time, however, I met something I have never seen before. I encountered what I would say was pure, organised and collective evil. Oh, Shego, bless her soul, was fond of claiming she was evil. Please understand that, compared to this, she was a pussy cat. Mischievous, aggressive, perhaps naughty. But evil? No! The covert GJ, though, was really all that. The agency as a collective was far more evil than the sum of all the people in it, and that frightens me. I never want to face that sort of impersonal, abstract evil again.

"Finally, this whole sorry mess took the life of someone very dear to me. And this is for real. She's gone. A toast, my friends, to Siobhán McGowan, otherwise known as Shego,

Everyone raised their glasses again, and there was a general murmur of commiseration.

"So, with all this, it shouldn't be a surprise to you all that I have decided to never, ever again do the hero thing. No more! I quit. I will never allow myself to be caught in anything connected to law enforcement or intelligence.

"And to make sure of that, I'm getting myself a new life. This dinner is a farewell dinner. Please say goodbye to Kimberly Anne Possible ..." She suddenly grabbed her hair and removed what had apparently been a wig. She also removed her sunglasses.

"... and say hallo to Jennifer Morgan!

Kim now sported a short, almost boyish, haircut, dyed dark brown. Her eyes, courtesy of coloured contacts, where also a deep reddish brown.

"Jennifer Morgan is a newborn young woman with an entire documented history, thanks to Wade. The name is entirely random. She has no living relatives. She is perfect for making a new start in life.

"In a couple of months, she'll be starting her university education in Cambridge. She'll visit Middleton from time to time and you'll be able to see her. You will never meet Kimberly Anne Possible again, though.

"Oh, Mum, please don't cry! We will meet again, I promise. Liike for the major holidays…"

James Possible was more practically inclined in his thinking. "Cambridge, huh? Harvard or MIT?"

"Neither, Dad! Cambridge in Cambridgeshire, England, UK. Jennifer has been enrolled in the Lucy Cavendish College. I'll be eating fish an' chips in greasy paper. I'll be having a pint o' bitter at the local pub. I'll be driving on the left side of the road, and cheering for Man U. Po-TEY-toes, po-TAH-toes. To-MEY-toes, to-MAH-toes. Who knows, I might even get to understand the point of cricket."

"Oh! That university. Well, not too bad a place, I guess... "

Kim sighed. "No, not too bad a place. And ideal for Jennifer Morgan to start her new life without too many questions. So, a toast! A toast to Jennifer! And to seeing each other from time to time!"

Kim, or rather Jennifer, mad a short pause before resuming with some determination.

"OK, now until she starts her studies, I need some time to myself to rest and think. Uncle Slim, I hope I can rent your hunting lodge for a couple of months?"

"Absolutely not, Kid. Off course, you can use it all you like, but I'll not accept a single dollar in rent for it!

"Thanks, Uncle. Then the plan is simply this: Tomorrow, I'll take my new car and drive up to the lodge. I'll pass through Middleton on my way to England. Jennifer will see you then. Cheers!"

==##0##==

Of course, it hadn't been that simple. Following her announcement, there were a million questions and concerns from family and guests.

And getting away in her car the day after had not been easy, either. Especially not since her father had happened to see some of the night goggles, guns and sniper's rifles in the special package she had picked up the day before.

"Don't worry, dad! It's just a precaution. I don't know if there are people out there who still wants me gone for some reason, but I don't intend to be a sitting duck for them."

The road trip, itself, had been without problem. She had stopped at up-market motels when she felt like it, and had treated herself to good dinners.

Now she was enjoying the handling of her new car as she made the final approach to the cabin. It wasn't really all that comfortable a ride, but she appreciated the feeling the Land Rover conveyed that there really wasn't anything it couldn't handle. It was almost as if the little ATV lived according to her old motto of 'I can do anything'.

There was smoke coming out of the chimney of the lodge, but she had expected that. Getting closer, she also saw other signs of occupancy: the shutters taken down from the windows, a couple of outdoor chairs and blankets, an open door, and something big and round under a tarpaulin in front of the shed.

Then, the figure of a young woman appeared in the door, a woman with shoulder length black hair and a Mediterranean complexion. She wore dark blue classic cut jeans, a plaid flannel shirt, and an enormous smile.

Kim gunned the car forward mercilessly until she could slide to a stop and jump out to throw herself in the arms of the one waiting for her.

"Oh, Shego! At last! Oh, I've been so worried!"

"Come now, Princess! You knew it worked. Joss and Betty told you, didn't they?"

"Yeah, I know, but it's different actually _seeing _that you're all right!"

"I'm fine. The shoulder is already healed." Shego held her Princess in a close embrace for a long time.

"So, okay, are you hungry? I've got a big meal prepared."

Kim smiled with a mischievous glimmer in her eyes. "Oh, I'm hungry all right, but never mind the damn food!"

==##0##==

Later, they were sitting in the living room of the cabin. Shego had a bottle of beer and Kim had her hands around a cup of coffee.

"So, anyway," Kim said,"tell me all! I take it the armoured hover-sphere you put together in the lair worked as it was supposed to?"

"Yeah, it did. But that was mostly thanks to input from Wade. And I wasn't really worried about the hardware, anyway. I was more concerned with the timing and stuff."

"Well, Joss made a very convincing EMT, and nobody could have recognised Betty D. as the pilot. All anyone ever sees is the eye patch, so the glass eye was a great disguise in itself."

"Yeah, as you say, nobody noticed anything wrong. And Wade hid all the records that might have shown that it wasn't a genuine rescue service helicopter."

"So, how did it go?"

"Well, as soon as we were out of the city, we all got into the hover-sphere in the back of the helicopter, and shut the hatch. Wade essentially flew the chopper from the ground, and when we came within range, he fired the ground to air missile. The sphere dropped out just a few milliseconds before the explosion, and I'm sure nobody could have seen anything strange from the ground.

"We dropped with the burning wreckage until just about tree-top level, and then the programmes in the sphere slowed us down to a survivable impact. It was rough, but no more than that. We were away from the site of the crash long before anyone else showed up."

"And here you are!"

"Yes, and here I am. New permanent skin dye. New documents, new name, new everything. Just like you, _Jennifer!"_

"Yeah, just like me! And we have the hush money from the government. Hopefully, there'll be nobody out there looking for us. Nobody that can get nervous about what we really know and what we really could say about it. I think we really made it! We are free to start again!"

"Yeah, it sure is a relief. I can finally walk away from _all _of it. My childhood, my hero days, my career as a master thief and villainess."

"Well, me too. No more worlds saving teen hero. Just me. And you."

And they watched the sun setting over the mountains together. For the first time in several years, they could both look forward to the future with some confidence. They had no idea how it would turn out in the end, but they felt sure that they would both do everything to make it work.

==##0##==

N/A. Yeah, finally, the epilogue. I take it nobody was all that surprised that Shego turn out to be alive after all. Hope this wasn't too much of a sappy happy ending for y'all. I think they deserved a chance to walk away from this and make some sort of new start. And to get out from all the pressure, both Kim and Shego had to make clean breaks with their pasts.

Anyway, I'm sorry for the long wait. I had imagined I would submit this epilogue just a few days after the previous chapter, but sometimes shit happens. This time, I rather unexpectedly ended up in hospital, having surgery to remove a tumour. I have just recently returned to some sort of normal

state of mind, and found the energy to actually do something with the fanfiction and the fanart over at DA. Hopefully, I'll be okay...


End file.
